The Missing Pieces
by Breeva Malfoy
Summary: After marrying a muggle and adopting her son,Draco soon discovers the boy is a wizard. When Hogwarts comes calling,Draco is dragged back into the world he had abandoned,his past and a new evil,waiting to claim him one final time. DM/HP/GW/RW/HG & the kids
1. Chapter One

**Prologue**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

_Author's note: The Missing peices is my first HP fan fiction. This plot has been burning rubber in my brain for sometime now, and I decided to give it a try and at least attempt to do the characters justice. I hope I do it well. Read and Review darlings! _

He never meant to fall so hard.

He sometimes wondered how he had let it happen, of all people, how _he _had let it happen.

His placid grey eyes focused on his wife through the darkness of their room, sleeping soundly, her warm body and soft limbs pressed against his.

Draco Malfoy sifted a free hand into his hair, resting his elbow against the wooden headboard of their bed, too sick with his thoughts to wrap up in her and let sleep disolve his worries. Worry. It was never an emotion he had been too familiar with. He had never lost sleep over things he knew he could never change, but as it was, here he was, wide awake, dread sitting in the pit of his stomach, refusing to leave for the third night in a row.

Glancing at the digital numbers over his shoulder, he frowned at the time. This coffee that his wife had introduced him too, was probably the only thing getting him through his days, other than knowing he was coming home to her every night. He stole another glance at her, now sighing heavily in what he knew was her dreams. Draco had done just this for the past three nights, sat up, feeling his insides splitting in two, and watched his beautiful wife sleep soundlessly, unaware of the lies and the deceit that she lay with every night for the last four years.

He never meant for it to happen. He had fought it from the moment she had wandered into his reckless life, but in the end, as always, he ended up getting what he wanted, and Nora Adair just happened to be it. Draco placed a finger on her jaw, brushing a coil of her chocolate colored hair off of her creamy skin. He couldn't help the smirk that grazed his lips. She had been a force to deal with from the very day he had crashed his car into hers. The woman could barely understand how he had managed to lose control of his car, when he had been simply pulling into a spot next to her own vehicle. Nora had done more than shout at him until he was red in the face, she had pressed her finger into his chest, stomped her foot in a most indering way, and wondered out loud where his stupidity came from.

He had never been treated with such little respect before in his entire life. He couldn't help the smirk slowly twist into a slight grin. He should have hexed her really. It wasn't everyday he was called a 'bloody idiot' more than ten times, his space invaded more than he liked, and let it go without even drawing his wand to do some kind of damage. Draco swallowed an immense urge to laugh and pulled his tired body and mind out of bed, away from the warmth of his wife.

The morning was creeping into the small home, attacking the shades drawn over the windows, with bright and warm vigiliance. Draco walked the hallway, his bare feet chilled from the hardwood floor beneath him, his hands forced into the deep pockets of his black pajama pants. He walked down the stairs, and upon reaching the second level, headed for his office. He was hoping to concentrate on work, knowing that sleep was not going to come, and was opening his laptop, when the door to his office opened. Nora was leaning against the frame, her arms crossed over her chest, a sly grin painted on her mouth.

" Can't sleep again?"

Draco took in the sight of his wife, suddenly thanking merlin he had been stupid enough to drive the damned muggle contraption into her in the first place. Her hair was a mess, curls lying across her shoulders, dipping unto her chest. Her straight fringe of bangs lifted slightly over her heavy eyes, her curiosity with her husband evident in them as she moved into the room and took a seat across from him.

" You were snoring again, Mrs. Malfoy"

Nora grinned. " You know I don't snore. Drool maybe, but never snore. I'm far too lady like for that."

He felt a thump in his chest when she smiled, and than laughed, the feeling shooting to his gut, were his nerves and worries were collecting again at the sight of her.

" Lady like?" He leaned into his own chair and watched her pull her bare legs under her. She was wearing an old t-shirt of his, one she had claimed for herself after they had moved in together, much to his own protests. It hadn't mattered where he hid it, however much he wore it, or even when he manged to strip it off of her mid argument over the damned peice of clothing. The shirt, his shirt always found it's way back to his wife. The slytherin crest, now clung to Nora's chest, and had Draco's blood pumping a little harder, a little faster, while a familiar heat spread to his abdomen, and rose into his chest at the sight of his wife, looking all the more dangerous bound by the body of a snake. She sat across from him, smiling, all too knowingly. He couldn't have warded off a smirk even if he tried. " I've never known you to be lady like, love."

Nora shrugged." No, I guess not." She was searching his face now, taking in his tired, anxious features. " Are you going to tell me whats wrong?"

He cocked his head. " Besides the fact that my t-shirt looks better on me?"

Nora shook her head, but kept her eyes on his. They were rimmed red, blood shot. Putting up a well rehearsed front as usual. " Don't be silly hun, you know it looks better on me, or the floor, which I'm assuming is where you'd rather it be right about now."

Malfoy touched his nose with his finger, tapping it. " Smart woman I married."

" Yes, very smart woman, but I doubt it takes intellect to see that something is going on with you." She sighed, recognizing all too well his willingness to keep her in the dark, even when she tried her hardest to pull him out of his own mind. " Please Draco...just tell me."

Draco continued to stare at her, her features now lightening as the sun soaked through his window. " Beautiful woman as well."

Nora frowned. He watched definite flecks of irritation pose a threat to him in her eyes. " Malfoy."

He watched her get up from the chair, the slytherin shirt skipping across the highest part of her thigh. Her hands found his face when she stopped in front of him, her fingers finding their own way into his white blond hair, while her eyes met his stormy gaze with concern. " Tell me."

He lost the will to meet her almond eyes for too long, scared she would see him for what he really was. Instead he pressed his forehead softly into her chest, explanations and questions he couldn't answer burning holes in his mind. What was he to tell her? What could he say? That he had been lying to her for the past three years? That he was only beginning to really see how he had been lying to himself for the last thirty one years of his life? His hands skimmed across the soft flesh of her thighs, than made their way under his shirt, to her hips, where he felt her quake under his touch. He didn't know what to tell her, how to explain. Would she understand? He knew that everything would make more sense to her, his odd actions, his abnormal questions, and offbeat answers. But he knew that things making sense, her husband making sense, had never been important to Nora. If it had, she would have never agreed to marry him. No, none of it had ever been important to her. Truth was important to her. Honesty was a constant within her. He was convinced the woman would have made one bloody grand Ravenclaw.

Draco lifted his head slightly than and stared into the head of the snarling snake, it's length wrapped around the emblem of slytherin. Once he had worn the badge with pride, and never questioned what his house represented. He had defended the name slytherin, defended his beliefs and morals, and mocked anyone who dared drag his house through the mud. He had done what was asked of him, as a Malfoy, but more importantly, as a slytherin. But now, as he met the crimson colored slits perched on the head of the reptile, he knew, after everything he had sacrificed, it was mocking him, mocking his choices, mocking his life.

Mocking his muggle life. The words still crept under his skin, even after six years, and caused his head to bow in regret and quick to follow, the familiar feeling of disgust and shame.

Nora slid into his lap than, leading him away from his thoughts, and giving him a welcome escape for the time. His hands automatically swept across the small bump hidden under his t-shirt. He lifted his head to stare at her, hoping that she would understand what his silence came with. She bent her forehead to touch his, a small nod accompaning her affection for him. " Not now?"

He shook his head, and leaned into the hollow of her neck, where he kissed her collarbone. A shiver blazed through her curved body, banishing his sentiments further from his mind, and pulling her closer to his cool skin. " Not now."

Nora nodded, pushing her hands though his hair again, placing her lips against Draco's temple.

" Come back to bed than?"

Draco shook his head, brushing his hands softly across the ever expanding skin of her stomach. " I really can't sleep, love."

Her face lit with another sly smile, as she stood before him again, letting her lips drift softly over his, until she forced a small groan from his mouth. She smirked at him, when she pulled away, feeling his protest as she headed back towards the door of his office.

"Who said anything about sleep, Mr. Malfoy?"

**Hello all! Please review! I know I didn't give much away, but I have high hopes for this plot, and Draco!**

**Criticism of all kinds is welcome and appreciated!**


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter One**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

" He's sick again."

Over his forth mug of coffee, Draco watched Nora storm into their kitchen, her breifcase in one hand, a deep green bookbag in the other.

" I know he's not sick." Draco stared at his wife as she held out the two at either side, exasperation in her voice, and frustration sparking in her eyes. " He doesn't get sick. I think the only time I ever had to bring him to the doctor was when he was a baby and had to get his shots. Other than that, I have never even heard him cough!"

His insides tightened as she talked. It was a familiar conversation, one that he and Nora had almost every morning before they both left for work.

" It's that damn school." She hissed, dropping into the kitchen chair next to him. " When he's not in bed faking sick, he's sick over going to the bloody place."

Draco stayed silent, letting her vent her frustration, but couldn't help the voice, his voice playing in his head as she did.

" We can't do this with him every morning for the next seven years. I can't force him to go. It breaks my heart eveytime I watch him walk through those doors"

Draco heard the hitch in her voice when she spoke, before he saw the tears. " I just don't know what to do."

" Don't make me go than!" The appearance of the boy, still clad in pajama bottoms and a worn gray t-shirt, made both Draco and Nora jump considerably where they sat. " If it breaks your heart so much mum, don't make me go."

" School isn't really optional, Scorp." Draco was already on his feet, directing the boy to take a seat, and placing a bowl, milk and cereal in front of the scowl now curling on the childs lips. " But if you wanna tell me what little git or group of gits, are making your life difficult, I can go to to school for you today, and take care of them."

" Draco!" Nora shook her head, shooting a familiar dagger at her husband, while Scorpius let his scowl falter, a small grin replace it.

" What? No one would be the wiser." He winked at his son, who was now smiling widely, while Nora was the one now scowling. " Except you two, and in that case, I know where you live."

" No one is taking care of anyone." She pressed a hand to her forehead, but not before batting Draco away after he manged to plant a kiss on her cheek." No matter how much we both would love to go down there and shake the life from each and every one of those little brats."

Scorpius shook his head as he poured milk unto his cereal. " I didn't really say anything about the kids mum. I just really hate the school." He jabbed his spoon deep into the mixture, before propping his face into his hand, ice blue eyes scoping anything else out besides his parents. " I just don't fit in. Even the teachers think I'm weird."

Draco steadied himself against the counter, while Nora tried to help their son see the benefits of being unique. Not weird. Unique. He watched the boy sneer at her words, than smirk when she spoke about being himself, and not changing because he wasn't what the other students deemed to be normal. Draco couldn't help siding with the sneer on his son's lips. He knew better than both of them, that Scorpius was anything but normal. His stomach twisted again, as his endless thoughts raged war on his mind once more that morning. He knew why his son didn't feel like he fit anywhere and why his peers and teachers could see it so vividly.

" I don't care mum. I'm not going back there, even if you both think school isn't optional." Scorpius shoved a spoonful of cereal into his mouth defiantly. Draco knew the daring look on his face all to well and as the boy munched on his breakfast, he couldn't help the surge of pride he felt for his son. " Anyhow, there are options. I looked it up on dad's computer. You can homeschool me, or hire a tutor, and what about private school? Dad went to private school, didn't you dad? I can go there!"

" Your father went to a school far away from here huney." Nora said, issuing a glare at Draco for ever telling their son that. He shrugged, thinking either of them had any idea how far away his school was. " And no, you cannot go there."

" Okay, well than a tutor? Or you can teach me?" He was grasping at straws now, looking from his mother to his father, hoping to see some kind of agreement as to who was going to stay home and give him some kind of an education.

" Scorpius, your father and I, can't homeschool you. We need to work, and a private tutor is so expensive. With the baby coming..."

" Oh right!" He snapped. Draco's eyes narrowed on to the boy, with a _'don't push it_' look, but his son ignored his father, and his warning.. " The baby! Nice to see whose going to have full reign of this house when it gets here!" The boy shot up out of his chair, knocking it backwards onto the floor. " And than both of you are going to forget all about me, because the stupid baby is both of your's, not just some kid that dad decided to adopt!"

Suddenly, Draco's coffee mug, he had sat on the table not a moment before, shattered into peices, sending hot coffee everywhere, and Scorpius into a fit of tears.

Draco's eyes widened, as Nola jumped up from her seat to sheild her lap from the scorching liquid. " Michael Scorpius Malfoy!"

The boy stormed from the room, ignoring his mother's use of his full name, which of course meant he was in deep with her. Draco could only stare at the empty doorway, where Scorpius had disappeared, and than back to the table where the remnants of the mug now lay in puddles of coffee. Nora, her hands shaking, and fresh tears now dripping down her cheeks, began to clean up the mess.

" Sit down before you cut yourself." Was all Draco could manage to say. His throat was throbbing, as he soaked up the spilt coffee and disposed of the glass.

" He didn't mean it Draco." Nora's voice sounded like a strangled whisper. " He's just so angry."

" Let him stay home today." He managed. " I'll take the day off, try and work some sense into the kid."

She nodded, but kept her gaze steady on the table before her. Draco knew what she was thinking, what she was always thinking when it came to her son. She was wondering how the mug had exploded without it being dropped on the floor. She was more than likely telling herself it was the heat from the coffee, and the glass just broke from it. It was an easy explanation, but Draco knew, by the blankness on her face, that the easy explanations were slowly beginning to wear thin for her.

" You okay love?" He banished the urge to grab her by the shoulders and shake the sense and easy explanations out of her.

" I'm fine." She came out of her thoughts quickly, kissing his lips lightly, before collecting her breifcase and her car keys from the counter. " Fine. You'll talk to him right? Maybe we could look at a tutor. Maybe that's all we can do right now."

He nodded, and she managed a small smile, returning to him again, this time kissing him a little longer. When she pulled away, her eyes softened on his face, shaking her head when he cocked an eyebrow curiously toward her. " What?"

She shrugged slowly, but kept her gaze steady with her husbands. " I love you, you know. And so does your son."

He forced a grin, hoping to ease her thoughts, so she could go to work without the morning events playing on her. " Well, I know Scorp does, but I think you might need to back all that love up with something a little more convincing. Maybe a replay of what you did to me this morning?"

After a solid smack to the head, Nora was gone, leaving Draco alone in the kitchen. Upstairs, a ten year old wizard was wishing he could fly away.

**Hello Again! I know that it's starting of a tad slow, but I do intend to get things moving as soon as the bits and peices are written and explained! **

**I undertsand that a lot of people are HG/DM shippers ( As I am ) but I wanted to try Nora out, mainly because she is a muggle, and we all know how our dear Malfoy feels or felt about us poor, non magic, beings. (Please give her a chance.) Also, the idea of Draco adopting Scorpius who is, at the moment, unaware of his abilities, was different.**

**The Golden Trio and their clan will also make their debuts very soon, along with the old Draco and his **_**scarhead**_**, **_**weasel **_**comments in tow, making for one amusing chapter. Especially with Nora in the room!**

**Once again, Please READ AND REVIEW!**

**Cheers!**


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

Marriage had never been high on Draco's to do list. The idea of being with one person for the rest of his dreadful life, wasn't something he had hoped to constrict himself to, let alone enter into. After settling into life amongst muggles, he firmly believed he had at least covered that base and resigned himself to a life of solitude, cheap booze, and one nighters; promptly followed by more cheap booze.

The war had ended years before, and the wizarding world was less than forgiving when it came to the Malfoy name. His father, the _great man _he was, had died two years after the final battle. Overcome with his misdeeds, and his failures either to Voldermort or his family, Lucius drank himself into a stuper, and never opened his eyes again. Draco's mother suffered a month, before her grief over the loss of her beloved husband snatched the remaining life from her. Narcissa followed her husband, loyal as ever to the grave. At eighteen, Draco was the only heir to the Malfoy fortune and as stupid as the day he decided he had it in him to kill his headmaster. Spending his inheritence recklessly, drinking himself sober and the affections of strangers eased his grief during the waking hours. Unfortunatly, when he had ran out of ways to spend his abundance of money, and tired of the women he used for his own release, the torture of his own mistakes and loss of his family only helped him nurse the neverending bottles of firewhiskey, until sleep took him. Years later, he was still trying to work his way through his inheritence, that just wouldn't dwindle. His anger grew everyday, his animosity and shame for his money, his treacherous past, and the name Malfoy, destroying his magic as well as whatever was left of his soul.

Nothing trigured him to make the ultimate decision to abandon the only world he had ever known. At the time, the idea of leaving, and moving to muggle London had always been an option for Draco. The actuality of his ideas and noises about disappearing from the wizarding world altogether though, seemed more like a drunken rant, which it usually was, than an actual plan he would put into action. Everytime he would sober his mind up enough, he would be sick at the thought of living with muggles. Than, as usual, he would go about drinking his weight in firewhiskey, and the plan seemed to make sense again.

And so, one day after his twenty sixth birthday he left the Malfoy manor, only stopping to make sure the now fully clothed elves were following his last order, and boarding up the windows and doors of the cursed place.

A year later, he met Nora. A month after meeting his wife, Draco met her son. Not a full year later the idea of being with one person for the rest of his life seemed less than dreadful and he was asking permission to marry the boy's mother.

The day Draco slipped the ring on Nora's finger, he felt calm for the first time in his life. When he looked into her glowing face, he was sure he had never felt so at peace with himself and the decisions he had made up to that very moment. He was sure, so positive, that he could make her happy, and love her son like he was his own, promising himself, that nothing he had done before hand mattered. He was done with what he used to be. The past was the past and he was ready to let it all go, let everything go, for this muggle and her muggle son.

That very same night when Draco and Nora announced the news to Scorpius, the eight year old shattered every window in the kitchen and living room in a fit of happiness. He never left the sofa while doing this. Nora thought it was due to the construction going on three doors down, while Scorpius timidly agreed, his eyes turned low to the ground as they all cleaned up the shards of glass.

Draco, on the other hand, knew immediatly the windows breaking had nothing to do with construction, and everything to do with the boy he was ready to claim as his own.He realized very quickly than, that the boy would soon turn eleven. He would get his letter, and it would explain everything about how their son was a wizard, and he was to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Everything he had left behind, and boarded up, like the damned Malfoy manor, would eventually find him again and finally destroy him, his final punishment for all of his sins.

" So does this mean you're going to adopt me?"

" If you want me to." The words were out of his mouth before he could really think anymore about how this family was going to effect him in the future.

" I want you to, and mum thinks we look alike, so people will really think your my dad." And the smaller wizard threw his arms around the bigger wizards neck.

After that, after Scorpius had wrapped his small arms snugly around his neck, he knew he couldn't tell him. Draco knew he couldn't tell them. Not than, not when he was so close to finally having the family he always wanted. He wasn't about to ruin it, by telling Nora he was a wizard, and far from the good kind. He knew he had to keep it from her, at least for the time being. He knew he had three years before Scorpius got his letter, and that was all he needed, just some time

Time had definitley ran out, Draco thought, as he trudged up over the stairs, and headed for his son's room. He knocked once on the door, featuring a small blackboard, the words _**Stay Out**_ scrawled across it in neon green words. He knocked again when his son didn't open up the door, but did respond by turning the volume up on his stereo, the calamity of musical instruments sounding more like a traffic jam, than music.

" Open up Scorp!" Draco knocked harder this time. " No one's making you go to school. I got your butt out of it for today!"

" And what about tommorow?" The voice demanded from behind the closed door.

" Open the door!"

" No!"

Shit, his kid was as stubborn as his mother. Or his father. He shook his head, knowing that he wouldn't be getting into his son's room, unless he unscrewed the door from it's hinges and removed the bloody thing all together. Somehow he knew he wouldn't be doing that.

_Accio wand. _He thought.A moment later, the sight of his wand soaring from his office and up the stairs to land in his hand, lifted his spirits. If he missed anything about the wizarding world, this was it. He rarely used magic, never wanting to force himself into a corner that he had to lie himself out of. He had enough lies, he didn't need more to add to the count that was always increasing.

" Last chance Kid!"

The music blared it's way from behind the door, louder and now sounding more like a cursed mandrake than a traffic jam.

_Alohomora. _The door opened slowly, giving Draco enough time to slide his wand into his jeans pocket, before Scorpius realized his father had found a way around his bedroom door lock.

" How did you get in here?"

" Magic." He smirked at his own choice of words. What a muggle saying. " What are you listening to?! Sounds like someones in pain, Scorp."

Scorpius only ignored him. He was sitting at his desk, the chair he was scowling in, leaning dangerously backwards on it's legs. After studying his sons stereo for a moment, he recognized the volume button, and flipped it off before the boy could protest his music being vanquished from the room.

" Well, if you're just going to ignore me all day, I guess I'll have to put you to work around the house. I was thinking maybe the attic first, than the garage and if you have time, the basement defintley needs to be cleared out and..."

" Dad." Scorpius wasn't looking at him, but Draco could see his hands were fisted and his eyes were still draining tears. " I didn't mean what I said."

" I know kid. No harm done okay?"

He nodded lightly, but kept his gaze away from his fathers. Draco took a seat on his son's bed, adjusting himself, when he felt something sharp poking him. At first, he thought it was his wand, but when he felt under the blankets, he came up with a heavy bright blue book.

" What's this?"

" Something for school."

" You're reading Diagnosing a Mental Illnesses Manual in hardcover?" Shit. Shit, shit, shit. The kid thought he was losing his marbles.

" Yeh, so what?" Scorpius heaved himself out of his chair, and began to busy himself with peices of clothing strewn about the floor. " It's for health class."

Merlin, he was turning out to be quick with the lies as well. " I find it hard to believe that this is part of health class, Scorpius."

His son only shrugged, and heaved a few sweatshirts and jeans into his already full hamper sitting in the corner of the room. " It's just a book dad."

Okay, so how to put this. Well Scorp, you're not going crazy, you just don't have control over your powers yet, that's all. But in a few months, that'll change and you'll be off to Hogwarts where you'll learn about potions and the dark arts, which by the way I exceled in, more than I wanted to, but never the less top of my class.

Draco scowled. " I don't want you reading this stuff. There's nothing wrong with you, do you hear me?"

Scorpius finally looked at his father, the book now in a death grip in his hand. He looked angry, which was not an emotion he was used to seeing traced across his dad's face. Scorpius decided he didn't like it, and quickly tried to mend the situation with the book.

" Maybe there is dad, and maybe that book can help me. I mean, I could have something going on in my head, that somehow causes things to happen..." His voice trailed off, but not before he pryed the heavy manual from his fathers hand. " I just want to know, I mean, if there is something up with me, I want to know what it is."

" And what do you think is wrong with you?"

" Well, there was a lot of different things." Scorpius fidgeted under his fathers silver eyes, wondering why the book was bothering him so much. " I can show you, if you want."

Draco nodded, and Scorpius sank down on the bed next to his dad. " There was a section on split personalities, and than another part on being schizophrenic or something..." Draco listened, trying to look like he had some understanding when it came to the words his son was pronouncing.

" It's right here."

" Read it to me than."

" Okay." The boy scanned the page, until he found the few paragraphs he had underlined. " It says here, that..." His eyes narrowed on the words before him. He blinked once, but when he stared down at the book again, the words he had read just five minutes ago were gone. Suddenly, he watched them reappear, like someone had dropped a handfull of letters onto the page and they began to shake and shimmer, every letter and word chasing each other across the white page.

This was the best Draco could do. If he couldn't tell the kid through his words, he could show him through his magic. Show him, and hopefully his son wouldn't run screaming into the streets. He couldn't tear his eyes way from his hands, folded neatly into one another, while he waited for a deafening scream, or the sounds of Scorpius slowly going mad explode througout the room. "It's okay Scorp." But Draco's words fell on deaf ears, as the boy gripping the book in his small hands next to his father, suddenly began to read the words that were now blinking like silver stars up at him.

_" First of all kid, by the time you finish reading this, I pray to Merlin, you still consider me your Dad. The day me and your mom got engaged, I knew I was meant to be just that. Your Dad. After I married mum, and the papers for your adoption were finally signed, I knew that my job was to keep you both safe, and do anything in my power to make sure you both were always happy. I promised myself, I would never be the reason for any kind of sadness mum or you might ever feel. Today I finally realized I haven't kept that promise, and have failed you both miserably. The thing is Scorp, I know you can do things; things that you can't explain. And you're not crazy kid, believe me, you're not. Mum was right when she said you were unique, because you are. You're unique because you could make your toys hover over your crib when you were only a baby. You're unique because when your happy or raging, you can break half a dozen windows, and shatter cups of coffee without even raising a finger to do so. So, please trust me when I tell you, that you are not suffering from some rare illness. If anything, you're suffering from a father who has been keeping the truth from you and mum for too long. It's a trait I have a hard time ridding myself of. The truth is I kept it from you and mum, because I thought if you both knew, you'd leave. The truth is, I'm selfish and always have been, that was until your mum and you came into my life. The truth is Scorpius, I'm a wizard...and that's how I know, that you are too."_

If silence was deafening, Draco's ears had fallen off. Scorpius still sat aside him, which could have been a good sign, considering that he wasn't gone into some permanent state of shock. The charm Draco had placed on the book faded slowly, and was replaced once again with it's former self. He wished he had made the spell stronger as he watched the shimmer of the charm vanish completely from the page. He didn't think he could make his voice work well enough, to explain it all again, and what if he didn't believe him? What if he now thought his Dad had lost his mind? Draco felt the urge to vomit turn in his stomach, as a vision of him locked up in a padded room, assaulted him.

" Seriously?"

Draco almost jumped out of his skin, when Scorpius's strangled voice captured him away and out of his daze. He knew his eyes were wide when he looked at his son, could almost feel the skin there stretch when Scorpius repeated himself. " Seriously?"

" Seriously." He sputtered, coughing out the only word he could manage.

Suddenly, Scorpius was on his feet, his fists pumping the air while he jumped up and down making the whole room and it's furniture shudder. " I knew it! I knew it!"

" What?" Draco was sure he was experiencing a mild stroke. " You knew you were a wizard?"

The boy turned than, his always pale skin, flushed red with excitement, and glowing with a happiness Draco hadn't seen since the day he had proposed to Nora.

" I'm a wizard!" It wasn't a question, but more of a statement that sounded rather shocked. " And you are too?! Right, I mean, I can do what you can do, right Dad!? I could do that trick that you did with the book and the words, right?!"

Draco almost cried when he heard the word _Dad _again. He almost laughed when he heard Scorpius call his spell a _trick_. " Well, no...I mean, I'm sure you could, but...you need to be trained to cast spells and even than it takes dicipline-"

" Train me than! Show me something!" Scorpius was almost ready to explode. He was a wizard! His dad was a wizard! He could cast spells!

" What do you want me to do?" Draco didn't even hesitate when he slid his wand out of his back pocket. Only when Scorpius's eyes flashed wide toward his hand, did he see the utter amazement and recognition set in for his son.

" Anything, I dunno!" Scorpius glanced about his room. " The walls! Can you change the color of my walls?!"

Draco finally grinned, and with a sweep of his wand, green and silver colours descended from the ceiling, splashing across the crimson of the room. His son stood in awe as his fathers house colors swept the walls. Even though he was casting very minor charms, Draco couldn't help the satisfaction and utter bliss he was feeling as he weilded his wand again, and this time in the presence of his own son. He cast again, this time towards a set of framed pictures sitting on Scorpius's desk. When the still picture of Nora and Scorpius began to move, smile and embrace one another, his son was beside himself with joy. Minutes later, the both young and old wizard, were standing in the middle of a room that was full of vibrant color, live pictures, dancing sweatshirts and a ceiling that was in the middle of a raging thunder storm.

Draco was too preoccupied with his son, and his spells, to hear her voice calling for him as she walked up the stairs of their house. Scorpius was too busy dancing about the room with one of his charmed sweatshirts, to hear his mother knock at his door and say his name. And when the door opened, it was too late.

Both of the wizards whipped around when a scream enveloped the enchanted room.

Draco dropped his wand. Scorpius stopped where he was, the charmed sweatshirt suddenly going limp in his hands.

Nora fainted.

**Review, review, review! **

**Next Chapter I plan to make a trip to one Diagon Alley, where little Scorpius might just run into a Potter and a Weasley!!**


	4. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

_Authors note: Hello again! I know I promised a trip to Diagon Alley in this chapter, but I figured Nora would need more time to come to grips with Draco's news. I always get ahead of myself. Anywho, I'm really anxious to get all the nitty gritty details out of the way, and bring Harry, Hermione and Ron into the story. Please oh please stay with me!_

If someone had told Draco Malfoy he would one day meet a muggle that terrified him more than Lord Voldermort ever had, he probably would have suffocated in his own laughter. If someone had told him he would one day willingly trade an intoxicating, seductive, geogeous woman, for a blessed day with the bloody golden trio, he definitely wouldn't be dodging a solid black pump from landing him square in the head presently. He would have been safe and secure in Azkaban prison, the pleasant dementors a welcome escape from the manical muggle, now backing him up against their bedroom door.

" I swear, if you tell me to calm down one more fucking time, I will rip that pretty blond head clear off your shoulders!"

With a hand on her hip, a finger jabbing Draco in the chest, and only one shoe helping her height meet his unsuccessfully, Nora had never looked more appealing to him. Under the circumstances, he really should have been making sure there was nothing sharp and pointy hanging about his wife, not to mention trying to explain to her what she had just witnessed moments before. Unfortunatley for Draco though, he couldn't help his typical thoughts when it came to the aggravating woman. Even, with Nora on the verge of extracting his most valued assets by force, he still wanted to feel her under him while he made damn fine use of the asset she was presently threatening to castrate.

" Stop looking at me like that!"

" Like what?"

" Like that!" Nora couldn't believe the idiot! She had just walked in on a room that had a piece of clothing dancing about with her son like it was alive, and he was ready to shag her senseless where she stood! She almost punched him square in the jaw when a grin slid across his mouth. " You'll be lucky if I ever let you lay a cursed finger on me again, Draco Malfoy!"

He almost laughed, but caught it before her balled up fist made an attempt on connecting with his face. This wasn't normal, he decided. The woman had caught him red handed. After four years of being so careful, and never attempting a spell or charm when she or Scorpius were in the house, he had basically backed himself into the corner he had tried so hard to stay out of. For a moment, he couldn't believe how easily he had told Scorpius, and how he had so carelessly produced his wand and the magic that came from it. It wasn't like him, even after he had fasioned a new life for him in the muggle world, married Nora and adopted Scorp, he still had never lost control over his emotions and feelings and where they belonged. He thought he had a better hold on exposing the all too human parts of himself that he always despised. Until now.

" I want to know what's going on, and I don't want to hear one more bloody excuse out of your mouth!"

" I think you should sit down Nora." She only stared at him from where she stood, making no attempt to sit amongst the disarray of sheets and blankets that was their bed.

"I think you should start explaining whatever that was!" Nora's hand was still pegged to her hip, the other hand now brandishing her left heel. At the sight of the shoe, now his wife's very own personal weapon, Draco cringed. He hoped that well defined spike she now had pointed toward him, would miss his body whenever she decided to chuck it at him. " It's not every fucking day I forget that I painted my sons room green and silver Draco, let alone removed the fucking ceiling!!" Draco could hear her disbelief, as a hiss escaped her throat. " And don't dare patronize me! I know what I saw! And I know that you know why I seen it!"

" Nora please sit down." He tossed his hands up in surrender before she released her shoe. " Damn it Nora! If you decide to take another unannounced dive for the fucking floor, I don't want you to hurt yourself or our kid that you have poking around in there!"

Her expression changed quickly when he mentioned the baby. Somehow, Draco knew that the baby had been the last thing on her mind. Nora's eyes softened and filled, as the rage that was cooking under her skin quickly drained away. She dropped her shoe, her arms quickly circling her stomach as she lowered herself onto the bed. Fear had replaced her anger, now etched into every dimple and line on her face. Her hair had fallen out of it's clip, and now mixed with the tears dripping down her cheeks and chin. Before Draco could drop down next to her and wrap her up in his arms, she was waving him off, shaking her head violently while her hands remained plastered against her stomach.

" I never thought of myself as a bad mother you know..." The voice was muffled under her hand as she wiped at her face. Her eyes were shut, and her head hung low against her chest. " When I had Scorpius...I promised him so much. I promised myself that no matter what came our way, it wouldn't matter, because nothing would ever matter as much to me as that little baby." Fresh tears assaulted her. When another sob broke the air around her quaking body, Draco felt the newest stab of guilt breaking him down with every tear she shed. " When he was one, he had this stuffed frog, this small, ugly, little green stuffed frog. I hated it. He loved it. Wouldn't sleep without it or be awake without it. I put him in his crib one night, the blessed toy still clutched in his little hands, soaking wet because he wouldn't get a bath without it." A sad smile caressed her lips. " An hour later, I could hear Scorp actually laughing over the monitor, and that was just strange because I could barely even get him to smile let alone laugh. And than there were these sounds coming from his room. When I went to see what was going on...I found a small, ugly, little green frog hopping about the floor of the nursery. Croaking. No longer stuffed."

The story didn't surprise Draco, instead it reminded him of the time he turned his fathers cane into a rattle snake hell bent on swallowing him whole. The only difference was Lucius saw it as a sign that Draco was already proving himself for Lord Voldermort, even though he was three and had no idea what he was doing. Nora on the other hand saw it as abnormal, and defintley not right. Draco nodded from where he stood, his own hand resting against his chin as Nora spoke.

" Things kept happening as he got older. When he was four, I caught him searching for cookies I told him he couldn't have until after supper. He was standing on the counter when I came into the kitchen, and I must have startled him, because he lost his balance." Nora finally mangaed to look at Draco. There was no skeptisim looking back at her. " He floated to the floor. Just hovered in the air, and landed on his two feet, a cookie in either hand."

" I couldn't deny there was something different about my son. I thought it was because I had him so young. My mother never failed to remind me of that. Seventeen years old and taking care of an infant. If Scorp grew up unadjusted it was only because I was an unadjusted child myself when I had him..." Her tears had stopped, but her cheeks were blotchy and wet. " As he got older, it got harder to ignore it, and easier all at the same time. I was always ready with some excuse for when the rooms in the house switched places, or when I was running a bath for him and the knobs would turn off all by themselves." A small laugh suddenly touched her eyes." You know why my mom won't see Scorpius anymore? He caught her criticizing my cooking one Christmas, and I'm sure he set the headless turkey on her."

He burst into his own laughter, the image of his bitter mother in law being chased about the house by a dead piece of poultry almost bringing him to tears. Scorpius had more talent than he was aware of.

" I lied to him." Nora had settled back into her thoughts again, her laughter dying along with Draco's. " I lied to my son. I told him there was nothing different about him, when I knew there was. All along I knew it."

" You were protecting him." That's what he was doing wasn't it? Protecting his family from a world that was not always as captivating as it seemed. Keeping them out of harms way. He thought about himself as a kid, stupid and prejudiced, his families pureblood beliefs, raising him to be a spoiled little wanker, with nothing but disgust for the muggleborns he went to school with. The idea of Scorpius being tagged a 'mudblood' made his own blood singe under his skin. That's what he was keeping his son from. People like him, wizards and witches who lived for their pureblood status and spat at anyone who was anything less.

Silence had enveloped the bedroom. Nora was waiting for him to say something more, to tell her what he knew, how he knew. When he pulled her into his arms, Nora pressed her tearstained cheek into his shoulder. She didn't protest him, but clung to her husband like he could save her from the reality she had chased away for far too long. " The room...how did he do it Draco?"

Draco breathed in her scent, brushing his hand through her hair. He wouldn't lose her. He wouldn't lose Scorpius or the baby now pressed between them as they embraced. The damage he had done, had some chance, even if a slight chance, of reparing itself. He just had to say the right thing, do the right thing, even if the concept was foreign to him. There was nothing else to lose. He would still protect them, but he couldn't protect himself anymore. Draco had hid behind his lies long enough.

" He's a wizard Nora." Draco felt her body cringe and stiffen against his. " But he wasn't the one playing on the room." His heart crashed to the floor when she pulled herself out of his arms.

Before she could find words to speak through her gaping mouth though, a loud bang vibrated through the walls of the bedroom. A disastrous shout followed.

The world around them both blurred when the cries of their child echoed throughout the house.

He was the first to run out of their room, followed by his wife, their conversation forgotten as another thunderous cry beckoned them both to their sons room.

It only than occurred to Draco that he had dropped his wand in his son's room when Nora had collapsed.

" Scorpius!" Nora had passed her husband, almost throwing herself against the bedroom door. " It's locked!" She had the door knob gripped in her hand, wrenching it up and down, her open hand banging on the barrier between her and her son. "Scorpius!"

A muffled shout reached them from beyond the room. Draco racked his brain. What the fuck was he supposed to do?! Was there a spell he could do without his wand?! Another bang tremored thorough the door, followed by his sons's muffled cries for help.

"Draco!" He had pushed Nora out of the way. She stood helplessly by, her heart pounding out of her chest as he threw himself up against the solid oak. When nothing happened he did it again, than again and again. An audible crack sounded, but he quickly realized it was from his shoulder, not the door.

He cursed in pain and frustration and clutched his now broken bones, before putting his foot through the damned obstruction. The wood splintered and broke away as he kicked it again, a new spasm of angry heat chasing up his calf muscle. Gritting his teeth, he tried not to focus on the pain or the shouting coming from the room he was so desperatley trying to get into. He slammed his foot into the door again, this time breaking a hole large enough to fit his good arm through. His hand fumbled with the lock before it clicked, and he and Nora swung into the bedroom.

" Oh my god!"

" Oh Merlin."

The wall was covered with the entire contents of his son's hamper, every article of clothing down to his boxers, laying out flat like multiple sets of restraints, holding hostage a very bound and very spread eagle Scorpius. If Draco didn't think he was dying from a pain he had never encountered before, he would have fell to the floor with hysterical laughter.

" What in the hell did you do?!" Nora, who had yet to see the amusement behind her son's predicament, was already standing before Scorpius, grabbing at a shirt that was covering his mouth with no sign of releasing it's prisoner. She gasped when the arm of the shirt slapped at her hand before attaching itself to the boy's mouth again.

" Where's my wand Scorp?"

" Your what?!" Nora continued to clutch at the clothes, hissing as each piece she tried to remove came to a sudden life, snapping at her skin like a wet dish cloth.

Scorpius was only able to direct his father with a pair of eyes, that looked more embarrassed then afraid. After a few minutes of searching the floor beneath the wall that his kid was stuck to like glue, Draco finally recovered it, promising himself to only let Scorpius use it whenever he was in need of a good laugh.

" Stand back Nora."

Nora's head snapped around to see her husband brandishing a long, slim piece of wood in his hand. For a moment, she didn't dare move. All she could do was look between her son, wrapped up in dirty clothes that she promised herself she would never wash again, to her husband who looked like a magician without his hat to pull a rabbit out of.

" He didn't change the walls...or make the ceiling rain."

" No, he didn't. I did." Draco approached his stunned wife and physically extracted her from where she stood frozen to the spot. " But I give him complete credit for this mess."

With Nora stunned to silence and safely behind him, he cast the counter-curse and watched as the enchanted clothes dropped away from their little victim one by one. As each piece gave way under Scorpius's weight, he cast again, so instead of falling on his little butt, the kid would land on his two feet. Nora watched in amazement as t-shirts and jeans dropped away from the wall and her little boy fell gracefully to the floor, explanations and apologies pouring out of him.

"It was an accident. I was just playing with it and than I wanted to try and do what you did Dad! You know, with the sweatshirt, but when I tried, a whole bunch of them came at me, than they all flew at me and dragged me over to the wall!" Scorpius looked back to all the clothes now piled lifelessly onto his floor, just to make sure that's where they were staying. " I'm sorry! I just was excited, and than Mum fainted and you dropped the wand, and you told me to go to my room when she woke up and started yelling, so I did and it was just there and..."

"Okay. Slow down. It's fine." Draco tried to sooth the tears that were now welling up behind the boy's wide eyes. " You're not hurt that's the main thing." He stole a glance toward Nora who had lowered herself down onto Scorpius's bed and was staring at father and son while the blood drained away from her face.

" So, I married a magician?" Her voice sounded weightless, and quickly reminded Draco of one Luna Lovegood.

" A wizard." Draco stated softly. Scorpius had taken his own seat next to his mother, winding his arm around her neck gently. Draco was still seething with pain, his broken shoulder bone desperatley needed tending to, before he followed his wifes suit and passed out. Nora watched Draco lift his wand again, this time a soft cobalt blue shimmer beaming from the tip of his wand.

_"Imendo". _She blanched white when he grunted against the haggard feeling of his bones mending back together under his shirt.

" An illusionist?" She squeaked, when his arm snapped back into it's rightful place.

" No, love. A wizard." The woman looked like she had just been stupefied.

She nodded lightly, her expression taking on a very blank look before recognizing the little arms hugging her tightly from behind. Nora took in every ounce of her son than. His mess of white blond hair still sat on his head and his eyes had went from staring at his father's shoulder repare itself to smiling at his mother expectantly. For the first time in months, she noticed his mouth, turned right side up, in an authentic, simply happy grin.

" And you are too." Nora's arms wrapped around her boy, pulling him as close to her as she could possibly get Scorpius without smothering the child.

" Yep."

" And you set that turkey on Grandma."

Draco couldn't believe it when his wife's lips quirked.

" Yep." Scorpius looked to his father. " I did right?"

" Sounds like it kid." At the sound of Draco's voice, Nora turned her attentions on him. Hate and love battling it out within her eyes.

" What do I say? What do you want me to say Draco?" She was pleading with him begging him to give her the easiest answer. " What do I do? An hour ago, I thought a carton of ice cream would cheer our son up. Maybe we could hire a tutor for him." Her eyes lifted to his, comprehension beginning to settle deeply within her. " Now that my son can get himself magically stuck to vertical surfaces and you can go about healing broken bones with a piece of wood, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to think."

He wanted to tell her what to say when the time came. Put the words in her mouth when it happened. He wanted to slip her Amortentia when she saw him for what he really was, so he could keep her loving him, even if for a little while. And when her thoughts turned sour toward him, and she no longer saw him as the man she married, he wanted to obliviate her memories, so he could do it all over again.

Draco thought the words, but refused to say them as his short lived relief from one lie dissolved once again into the misery of another.

_Still love me even though I lied. _

_Say you'll never leave me when you find out who I really am._

_And try not to think worse of me when the world I ran from, tells you how much I hate your kind, and dispise myself for loving you._

**Next chapter I'm skipping ahead a few months. The news has sunk in for Nora as well as Scorpius and after receiving his letter, Draco has no other choice but to take them both to Diagon Alley! And yes, we will see a young James Potter and younger Rose Weasley next chapter! I promise!**

**(Not to mention a more than animated Nora whose more pregnant, moody and (hee hee) hormonal!) Poor Draco!**

**Thanks to Back to Life and Padsy!! Please continue to review!**

**And everyone else PLEASE OH PLEASE REVIEW! Comments are so nice!**


	5. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

**Please Read!**

_**Author's note:**__ I have to stop promising chapters I'm really not ready to write. I have an issue of getting ahead of myself, but even though I love giving insights into what the next chapter will bring, I think I'll have to stop that, and just write however my brain patches the story together. I do apologize to you guys. Diagon Alley is next up, and I know this because I'm almost done writing the sixth chapter! So once again, I'm sorry, but please read on! _

A different world away, a dim very dank pub held very few occupants. The group keeping the small bar so dark and empty sat amongst themseleves, rarely speaking, pitchers of firewhiskey draining away between the cloaked figures.

The small bartender dared not disturb them as they drank the now remnants of what firewhiskey he had left. He knew who some of them were, the resemblance to their foolish parents giving their identities away, even as they tried to hide behind their thick black cloaks. As for the others, the old wizard hoped to forego any mannerly introductions with them. He was not prepared for a fight this night, especially one he knew he would lose.

The night was yet to bring more of them. More shapes and features hidden away from unwelcome eyes. There was five of them now, brooding over their drink. Every now and again one would bark for the the timid bartender, while brandishing an empty glass the old mans way. The house elves the man had for hire had taken to his stock room whenever this happened, squeaking about the darkness the strangers had brought with them. The wizard did nothing to force the elves upon the table. He decided keeping them out of sight would be the best thing for his smallest employees, as well for his own well being and his business. He stood on his livelihood, while the decendants of a very old evil inadvertently threatened it without even lifting their wands.

When the bar turned cold, it seemed he and his elves were the only ones to notice. The wizard blanched when the freezing temperature came with a screeching laughter that enveloped the bar, and roused the concealed figures from their drinks.

A woman appeared before them, immediatley tugging her hood away from raven colored hair hanging down her back in a thickly wound braid. The laughter cackled off her lips, than drained away. Midnight blue eyes set on the table before her, narrowing dangerously upon them all.

" Stop hiding behind your cloaks. You sit as if you are ashamed." Her voice was toxic when she spoke. " How proud your families would be to see such disgusting displays of cowardness."

Upon her command, the hoods fell away from each wizard and witch, their eyes now downcast once more.

" What did you discover?" The woman spat.

" Enough." A low and raspy voice spoke before the rest. Gregory Goyle sat hunched over the table, no longer a pudgy, empty headed, little bootlicker. His eyes were dull of any color, but small and deep set against a face that looked battered and worn. The removal of his cloak had exposed simple short brown hair. There was nothing catching about the man, the only reason being to look at him, was because there was no other choice, his height and gurth an obvious force to be reckoned with. It was a force not many dared to come up against. " It's what we thought."

" Worse than we thought." A voice, filled with repulsion, piped up, her cloak down but still hidden behind the mass of man seated next to her. " He's alive and well. Hiding away amongst muggles."

" Caught himself quite a little catch as well." Another man with snapping emerald green eyes sneered at the woman seated across from him. He took a long pull on his drink before lowering it to meet a twister of rage in her black stare. " Looked good enough to eat." He purred. " So much creamy skin and waves of hair looking like melting chocolate."

The woman threw herself from her chair, a white blond bob of hair flying about her extreme features. She pulled her wand from the depth of her cloak and pointing it like a dagger at the man before her. " Be very careful what you say to me, Ebon!"

His face stayed avidly still. " I believe Malfoy's taste for pathetic, lovesick witches has passed away."

The witches eyes widened, her expression of rage collapsing into murderous hate.

" Enough!!" The woman with the poison dripping from her voice, raised her wand and forced Deidra back into her chair with a violent thud. " Enough." She turned her attention back to Goyle, now leaning low against the table. " A muggle is carrying the name Malfoy? An unworthy, dirty little muggle is fouling up my blood line? My families pureblood?!"

Not one of them dared speak. The black braid swung about the woman's back, when she turned from them all. She was not concealing her rage, but rather fighting the urge to vomit the contents of her stomach in front of her followers.

" The muggle is carrying more than the name Malfoy, Avedra."

The woman named Avedra forced herself to face Ebon. Even in the darkness that incircled the pub, she could see hints of desire and craving pooling in his sharp stare. " What do you mean?"

" We believe that your dear cousin, fathers a son." Ebon flashed a set of razor sharp teeth. " And will soon bring into the world yet another filthy mudblood."

Her breath came quickly as bile rose in her throat.

" If you allow it, I can take care of his muggle and his unborn abomination." His stomach rolled with lust like hunger as he invisioned tasting the little muggle's insides.

" She's mine." Diedra growled like an animal caged. " If you allow it Avedra, it will be me to spill her polluted blood."

Avedra hadn't heard their pleas. She hadn't even heard the bartender when he dropped a tray full of mugs to the floor after hearing the ends of the conversation. Her mind wouldn't let the noise in as it turned about, forming thoughts that thrashed and clawed it's way to the surface.

This was not to be even though it already was. She wouldn't let it.

The work that had been left for her would not go unfinished. The war that had been fought fifteen years before had not been lost, even if the wizarding world believed it to be. The means to the work that her mother had strived for and unltimately died for, had not turned to dust along with her bones. It had passed it's way to the ones who remained, the ones who presently sat before her, awaiting her orders. Avedra scowled at each of them. Gregory Goyle. Deidra Crabbe. Helena Crouch. Vinley Dolohov. Ebon Greyback.

" Have your way with the muggle trash." Avedra looked between Ebon and Deidra, her head throbbing with her mothers voice. Her mothers orders. " Rip the child from the muggles womb and throw it at it's father's feet." Her head mecanically curved, when the horrified gasp from the old bartender, finally found it's way past the shrieking voice in her mind. In a movement not one of them even had time to recognize, the lethal words she had spoken many times before were released with affliction.

_"Avada Kedavra!!"_

The old wizard's terrified features never left her raging expression even as he toppled to the floor and succumbed to the killing curse.

" Helena! Vinley! Put him somewhere." The voice in her head was getting louder. " Dispose of him where the cursed Aurors will never find him!" A witch with thick crimson colored hair coiling about dangerous eyes rose from her seat with ease, followed by a lanky man with yellow blond hair hanging down his back also bound by a braid.

" What about the boy Avedra?" Goyle spoke again, replacing the hood upon his head again. It was time to disappear.

The witch watched Crouch and Dolohov apparate with the dead body. She lifted her cloak over her head as well, before turning on the remaining witch, wizard and werewolf.

Revenge was apparent in them all. Blood was not as important to them as it was to her, status and pureness forgotten along with what their fathers and mothers had been killed fighting for. Never the less, she would use them to spill unclean blood whenever she had to. She would use them to finally put her mothers voice to rest and clean her families lineage.

And she would start with her cousin and his atrocitys.

" He's mine...Draco will learn his lessons the only way I know how to show him."

Seconds later Avedra Lestrange disappeared.

**Review? Please? I know this one was short, but I loved writing it!**

**Like I wrote above in my little author's note Diagon Alley is next.! Things will start to pick up than. I hope by the seventh chapter Scorpius will be in Hogwarts! **


	6. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

_Authors note: This chapter takes place three months after Draco is found out to be a wizard. Within these three months Chapter Five had taken place. I wanted to just let everyone know that, seeing how I realized I may have been a unclear in the previous chapter. Anywho, read on! _

_Also I changed the preview. I'm a horrible person. I was feeling it when I wrote it and when I read it again, not so much. No more I promise! _

**Three Months Later**

" Nother busy day there, Tom?"

" Nother busy day, Owen."

" You suppose you'll be seeing many a muggle today?"

The pub owner shrugged over his shoulder at the short and stalky bald wizard, now shoveling one of his freshly baked pastries into an wide open mouth. " It's that time of year again. I spose I will be."

The bald wizard chewed thoughtfully, his bird like eyes glancing about the now chalk full bar. " You think we got some here now there Tom?"

Tom shrugged again, this time wiping at the crumbs his very nosy usual was dropping onto his counter. " I'd say so. The prophet has been making noises about an increase in muggleborns births over the last few years and I 've seen more than a few make their ways through here since than. I'm sposin this year won't be any different." With a slight grin, he motioned towards a couple toward the back of his bar, almost cowering with amazement behind a pair of children brandishing what he knew was their books and supplies list for Hogwarts. " I'd wouldn't suppose that it's just my little bar having that duo over there in such a twist."

Both men chuckled when another wizard appeared out of no where and landed near the foursome, causing the parents to jump with terror and the small twin boys to hoot and holler with delight.

" Max'll take care of them." Tom agreed with himself before refilling Owen's glass with butterbeer. " Hogwarts wouldn't just have anyone guiding the muggles about Diagon Alley now would they?"

" Some guide though, eh Tom? Creeping up on the poor muggles like that." The wizard shook his head, while cramming another chunk of dessert into his

mouth. " Have an attack and pass out on your very own floor, I would say."

Tom laughed again, surveying the room as he did. " Wouldn't be the first time I had a muggle go faint from the going on's about here."

The man took a long pull on his butterbeer. " I hear Harry Potter's oldest is headin to Hogwarts this year?"

Tom nodded absently as a trio of newcomers had just popped though his doors. " The oldest Weasley is too."

Owen belched loudly. " Should be interesting to see how McGonagall handles the next generation, eh Tom?"

But Tom wasn't listening anymore. The trio he had only glanced, was now making their way across the room, bringing along a heavy hush of whispers as they did. Every head had turned to follow the family, lead by a small blond haired boy who was as studying his own list tucked tightly into his hand. He was unaware to the stares and buzz he and his parents were creating, as well as the present bickering both man and woman were now contorted in as they followed their son.

" He knows the rules..."

" I know he knows the damn rules Nora. I just want to make sure he gets the consequences to breaking the rules as well."

The woman shook her head violently at the man before pushing her way ahead of him. " Consequences? Empty threats you mean! Why can't you just promise to ground him instead of pretending you have the power to sort him into Huffelpuff?! He knows better than that Draco!"

Owen dropped his drink midway to his lips. Tom thought he would suddenly join the list of muggles who had fainted dead away onto his pubs floor. The rest of the room dropped into complete and utter silence.

Nora stopped mid step at the hush and collided with Scopius who had stopped to stare at everything and anything around him, once again oblivious to the attention his family was receiving. Her head swiveled one way and than the other, before meeting Draco's stiff expression. His eyes were charcoal dark now, she thought from their argument, but when she looked to him again there was no sign he was even thinking on their fight anymore. Instead, apprehension sat in the storm that was solidly fixed against his rigid features..

Her gaze swept across the pub once again, taking in the faces and the shock plastered to them from each individual being scattered about.

But no one was staring at her or Scorpius.

They were staring at Draco.

* * *

" Did you see the hats they were wearing mum? And the clothes? It was like halloween in there!" Scorpius had yet to take a breath as Draco prodded him and Nora through a massive oak door to the back of the pub. " And did you see the owls? Hey dad, did you see them? They were just flying around and no one seemed to even care!"

Draco pushed the large barrier open with his shoulder nodding to his son, but focusing most of his attentions on Nora. Scorpius bounded by them both, now chattering about the trays full of food and drinks floating about the pub serving it's customers all by themselves.

Nora walked by her husband slowly, taking in the solid brick walls now surrounding them not willing to meet his gaze.

" Can I have an owl dad? I think I'd want an owl!"

" What was all that about Draco?"

He cringed when she turned on him. Her arms were folded across her chest, resting on the growing bump now very evident under her simple long sleeve white top. She didn't look angry with him anymore, but Draco reminded himself that even though she wasn't angry now, her raging hormones due to the growing bump, gave her emotions a subject to change warning, that he believed should be attached to her forehead at all times.

Draco placed a firm hand on Scorpius's shoulder to keep him from bouncing about the adults. " Six years is a long time to be gone Nora."

" I know that and I get that." She pressed her hand to her stomach. " But was that the only reason why those people seemed so stunned at the sight of you?"

" Maybe they were looking at you love."

She rolled her large brown eyes under a crooked brow. " God, your charm is sickening sometimes."

How he managed that charm, he had no idea. How he even managed a grin to creep across his mouth, he would never know. Aside from the panic attack he was internally battling after the events that had taken place inside the Leaky Cauldron not minutes before, he was quickly losing his well rehearsed nerve and steady hand as those minutes drifted by. Draco had been expecting it, the reactions, the gasps and the whispers. If he hadn't envoked so much upheavel and disturbance, that would have probably been even more daunting than what he was currently faced with.

And Draco knew what he was faced with. He knew that even after all the time he had had to come clean, now, this moment would be the prime time to come even cleaner to Nora and his son. He had told them as much as he could without leading them down a path he was never going to let his family walk down. His past and what he was while he was living it, was his. Draco had decided that for them. How he was going to keep them from it was the question now weighing on him. But in order to walk back into this world, his world, he had no other choice but to let them into the bits and pieces of his life before he escaped from it.

Nora now knew the origin of his slytherin t-shirt. She still claimed it as her own. Scorpius knew all about Hogwarts and to Draco's horror wanted nothing more than to be sorted into Griffindor house. Apparently, his son disliked snakes. He tried desperatley to change Scorpius's mind about Slytherin, but what Draco had always admired about his former house, his son coiled away from. After Draco conjured a common grass snake in hopes of grabbing his sons attention and changing his mind about Slytherin, Scorpius had run from the room screaming. After that, Nora had ordered him to stop his insane behaviour.

He touched on his own education, gaining a chuckle from Nora when he admitted to being _somewhat _of a bully while in school. She didn't believe him, and Draco did very little to make her. She asked him if his parents were really dead. He told her yes. She asked him why he left. He told her it had been time to leave. After the obvious questions, and partial answers it had been all about Scorpius than, his letter, a trip to Diagon Alley and inevitably the beginning of his seven years at Hogwarts. It had all seemed like enough.

It had been another escape for Draco and he had settled comfortably in it. For three years he let the truth lie. For three months, he only divulged what he deemed necessary, so when the time came, he could keep his family through a form of truth he had manipulated to suit his needs. In the last three minutes, he had walked around the unavoidable again.

Draco's charm wouldn't be the last trait of his to sicken his wife. He was sure of that.

* * *

" James Sirius Potter!!"

" Right her Mum!"

The wild witch with the thick head of ginger colored hair made a direct bee line for her oldest son who was now popping up and down over the crowds and crowds of people crammed into Flourish and Blotts book store. In one hand she held tightly her eldests list of books and supplies. In the other hand she held even tighter the hand of her seven year old daughter, now howling loudly over the racket enveloping the shop.

" Lily honey. For the love of merlin, please hush!"

" Look mum! I found it!"

When Ginny Potter finally pushed her way through the crowds, pulling her daughter the entire way, she found James with his hands wrapped around a book that was not even close to being on her son's school list.

" Quidditch through the Ages! I bet they just got it in! Me and dad were in here like a month ago, and the owner told us if we were lucky enough to find a copy, he would pay us a lot of galleons for it!" He passed it to Ginny. " Look, it's got to be older than you!"

" I want one too. If you buy one for James I want one too!" Lily sniffed, passing a hand under her runny nose. " And I don't wanna share Mummy! He'll break it.!"

" It's a book stupid. You can't break a book!"

Another howl spilled from Lily. Ginny was losing her patience. She quickly made a mental note to hex Harry when he got home from work that night, before scolding her son for calling his little sister stupid, and cleaning up the fresh tears crawling down Lily's pink face.

" Having fun yet?"

" Oh thank Merlin!" Ginny breathed exasperated relief when her sister in law suddenly joined the chaos that was her little family. She groaned when she noticed the short bob of orange curls that made up her little neice, standing quietly next to her mother with her face already hidden behind an oversized copy of Enchanted Encounters.

" Hi Aunt Hermione! Look what I found!" James brandished the book at his aunt." Only copy too I bet!"

Hermione Weasley could only laugh as Ginny quickly passed off her hiccuping daughter to her aunt, who settled the distraught child in her arms with ease.

When Ginny plucked the book from her sons hand, she was sure he was more then ready to burst into the same fit of tears she had just cleaned her daughter up from. " Your father told you this morning James. We're shopping for school, not for books on how to get yourself killed before you graduate."

" But Dad would want it!" He stomped his foot against the ground, and immediatley received a menacing glare from his mother.

" Than tommorow you and your father can come back here and get it!"

" But what if it's gone?!" Tears were brimming in a pair of emerald green eyes now looking to his aunt, begging her to help his plight. " It's the only one left!"

Than Harry can deal with what I've been dealing with all morning, Ginny decided.

" You could just drop the Potter name Ginny." Hermione stroaked the hair on Lily's head, straight and long like her mothers, but colored carroty orange like Ron's. When she met her sister in law and friends common glare of betrayal, Hermione laughed again tickling her neice into her own peels of giggling as she did. " It couldn't hurt, and you know that Harry would love to have that book back again."

Ginny dropped her gaze to both her children. Lily had suddenly recovered from her bout of histerics but it looked like James was about to pick up where his little sister had left off if his mother didn't at least try and get the book out on hold.

" Traitor." She shot at Hermione before turning to make her way to the register, Quidditch through the Ages in hand.

" You'll be in line for a while Gin!" Hermione called over her shoulder as Ginny stalked though the crowds once again. " We'll meet you at Floreans!"

" Ice cream?!" Lily squeaked, now glowing with the promise of dessert.

Hermione led the three children out of the book store balancing Lily in one hand, and Rose in the other, who was still lost in her book, and probably very unaware as to where her mother was taking her. Diagon Alley was busier than usual. For a moment, Hermione scolded herself for not taking Rose earlier to get her school supplies, but everytime she had attempted it, her work as an Auror or Ron's work at the ministry had either of them always post phoning the trip. Now, with only a week left before they were to send Rose off to Hogwarts for her first year, Hermione felt like she was no closer to having her daughter ready in time. It only comforted her slightly when she looked around her to see every other parents running about from shop to shop, probably battling the exact same sentiment she was feeling.

" James stay close!" Her nephew had already taken the lead as per usual. Presently, he was wondering out loud if his mother would take them all to his Uncle Georges shop before they flooed home. Hermione thought she heard something about James wanting to get a headless hat, and was about to clear that idea permanently from his little mind before his mother could, when out of no where a sudden blur of white blond hair came hurtling toward the boy and slammed straight into her nephew sending both children toppling to the ground in a tangle of limbs and surprised shouts.

" Hey! Ouch! Get off me!"

" I'm sorry!" The voice that caused the calamity cried from somewhere under the robes of his victim. " It was the wand!"

" Rose hold on to Lily tight okay?"

Rose Weasley had poked her nose out of her book at the sight of her cousin and a small blond boy trying to extract themselves from each other. She nodded and took hold of Lily's hand, who was now also staring with interest at the mess her brother had gotten himself mixed up in.

" Okay...wait!" Hermione was on her knees now, doing her best to free Jame's robe from the other boys jacket where it was caught in a zipper, and wrapped about his upper body

" Oh god, Scorpius!"

" Mum it was the wand. It just kinda pulled at me!!"

Hermione watched a very pregnant woman appear from the crowd of witches and wizards, now walking around the mound of children she had finally been able to pull apart and help to their feet.

" And took you with it..." The woman grabbed the childs hand in her own, extracting the brand new wand as well and slipping it into her pocket with what looked like extreme caution. Immediatley, she looked to Hermione, shaking a head full of hair propped on top of her head where a pair of sunglasses sat. " I'm so sorry. Scorpius apologize."

Scorpius red with embarassment turned to the taller boy, now brushing some dust out of his messy hair. " Sorry. I think somethings wrong with my wand."

James shook his head at the boy, now shrinking behind his mother. " Nah. The first time I was allowed to even touch my wand, I ended up setting my Mum's cat on fire!"

" Really?" Scorpius loosened his hold on his mothers hand. " Was it hurt?"

" Nope, my dad managed to put it out before it did much damage, but the cat won't come anywhere near me now. Just runs in the other direction when it sees me coming."

James grinned wildly when the little blond boy burst into gails of laughter.

" My names James."

Scorpius took the hand that was being offered to him and shook it like he had seen his father do at work so often. " I'm Scorpius."

" And that's my little sister Lily and my cousin Rose." James pointed at the two girls. Rose stuck her head back behind her book quickly. Uninterested by the newcomer, Lily grabbed at her Aunt Hermione's hand, demanding the ice cream she had been promised.

" Ice cream." Hermione motioned toward her lot.

Nora nodded her understanding and rubbed her own stomach, before motioning to Scorpius. " I wish I could get him to eat something.He was too nervous to when we left the house this morning, and now that he's finally here I doubt I'll be giving him any sugar for the next week."

Hermione laughed. " I should probably take your lead. Is it his first year?"

Nora nodded, a grin now beaming on her lips as she watched Scorpius and black haired boy chat amongst themselves. " First year. First trip to Diagon Alley. First for everything."

" Hey Aunt Hermione can I take Scorpius to see Uncle Georges shop?!" James turned back to Scorpius who was now electric with his new found

companion. " They have the best stuff there! I want to get this hat that when you put in on, your head actually disappears right off your shoulders!"

" Really?" Scorpius had forgotten all about his mother now. " Awesome!"

" Awesome?" James grinned, unsure if Scorpius liked or disliked the idea of being invisible from the neck down. " What's that mean?"

" Hermione!!"

Nora was still trying to picture her sons head disappearing into thin air under a top hat, when a well pitched shriek inclosed on them from over the crowds and masses about them. She soon saw a tall, slim woman with too many bags of books hanging off both of her arms emerge from the bevy of people, all the while shouting, when they didn't move quick enough for her liking. When she finally wrenched herself free, only than was Nora able to make out the panic bursting from her freckled features.

" Ginny! Merlin what's wrong?!"

" You are not going to believe who I just saw? Or I think I just saw... I don't know." Ginny inadvertently passed off a load of books to the stranger now lending a hand to lighten the load off of the hysterical red head. " It couldn't have been?"

" My goodness Ginny, who was it?"

Ginny shook her head full of hair as her eyes slowly adjusted back to her surroundings. James was staring at her with his own eyes ready to roll about in his head due to his mothers sudden episode. Lily looked like she was about ready to resume crying, either in fear or the fact that she still wasn't anywhere closer to getting ice cream. Only Rose's dark chocolate colored eyes could be seen over her book, staring at her Aunt with fading interest. To her neices left, a small boy was also staring at her, one eyebrow cocked over a pair of blue eyes the color of ice, a mess of white blond hair drifitng into his boggled gaze.

" Gin! Who was it?"

" Malfoy." She managed all the while still staring at Scorpius.

Hermione almost laughed. " I think it's time to get you home Gin. Really...of all people...Malfoy?"

" Draco?" When her husbands name left her lips, both woman turned on Nora like she had just rambled off more than a few obsenities in front of their children.

Scorpius shrugged at the women now caught up in some odd staring contest, and settled his attention back to his new friend. " That's my dad."

" Dad!?" Hermione and Ginny blustered in unison at the little boy. " Draco Malfoy is your father?!" Hermione squeaked out while Ginny took a step back in shock.

" And my husband." Nora jumped a little when Ginny turned on her, amazement littered about her stretched features.

" Husband?" Ginny squealed.

" Yes." Where was her husband anyway? Nora decided listening to Draco about not wandering away from him, was probably advice she should have taken to heart.

" Husband?" Hermione repeated, unable to connect the word to her former enemy. " Husband?" She sputtered again.

" Merlin Granger." A voice, an all too familiar voice dripping with sarcasm and a well thought out insult attacked Hermione from behind. " I always thought you dispised having to ask a question twice."

Ginny gasped. Hermione saw his stiff smirk.

And Draco couldn't believe his bloody luck.

**I'm sorry it took me so long to update. I haven't lost interest with this story, but just have been busy with a new job! **

**I had a very, very ahhhh very hard time writing this chapter. I went back and wrote it over and over again, and this is what I came up with. **

**Anywho, read and review. Chapter Seven and Chapter eight will be soon to follow.**


	7. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

" We're leaving."

" But I was going to go with James to his uncles joke shop."

Draco heard his son, but dared not glance away from the place Ginny Potter's hand had disappeared to under her cloak. He was sure if he did, Draco would end up on the end of a very well deserved hex brought on by the skilled witch.

Hermione's eyes never left the man now occupying the space before her. So this was what shock felt like. She couldn't even form the words or questions for the man she had assumed, as well as the rest of the wizarding world had assumed, was dead. But he wasn't dead. Draco Malfoy was very much alive and very much so ready to duel the two witches if it came down to that. At least, she thought he would, if it came to that.

" Not today Scorpius." Draco said through gritted teeth, once more, only hearing the displeasure his son was currently aiming at his father.

By this time, after a solid three minutes with not a word being passed between her husband and the two women who were looking less likely to faint, Nora had decided that along with what happened in the Leaky Cauldron, this little scenario was more proof that Draco's "_six years is a long time to be gone" _was more than bull shit. It was a heaping pile of never ending bull shit and Nora had had enough of it.

Draco hadn't expected what happened next. Of all the women in the little circle to attack him, actually physically, he hadn't thought it would have been his wife. Never the less, Nora still managed to surprise him daily, as well as managing to throw a unsuspecting solid slap to the back of his head.

" What the hell Nora?!"

" I could ask you the same thing Draco Malfoy!"

" Don't worry." Scorpius was already on the job of shrugging his parents embarassing little spat off to James who could only hold back a laugh as his friends mum served up another shot to his dad's defensless head. " They do this all the time. Mum usually has her reasons."

Both children erupted into laughter. Rose Weasley had dropped her book completely now and Lily was now clutching Ginny's hand that had fallen away from her wand once the physical attack on Draco Malfoy had begun.

" How the hell are you getting the kind of reactions you're getting?!" Nora planted herself directly in front of and between Hermoine and Ginny, who were as shocked as the stunned wizard was from his wifes sudden ambush. " And don't you dare tell me it's because of you're cursed good looks! Don't even think it! No one is this appealing! No one! Not even you!"

Draco watched as Hermione burst into a laughter she had been trying to hold off from the moment Nora had began to assault him.

" Or maybe I'll just start asking random people why you see to be of such interest around here! Maybe than I'll get a more patched together answer than what you've been passing me for the last three months!"

" What do you want me to say Nora?! I've told you practically everything." Oh the lies. Telling a lie was like telling the truth to him now. Draco did it so much, he had somehow convinced himself he was actually being truthful. " Almost everything."

" Thank you merlin for giving us this privalege." Ginny smiled brightly when Draco shot her a glare that could have buried her six feet under if it had the power behind it.

" Mummy I want ice cream!" Lily cried now, so bored with the antics before her. It wasn't like she hadn't seen it before. Her mum usually used her daddy's head the way that the lady was using the white haired mans head. Her mum didn't hear her though. Neither did her aunt Hermione. Anger seered through her little frame. She wanted ice cream and they had promised it. Her mum told her to never pull a temper tantrum just because she didn't get what she wanted. But right now, her mum was not listening to her. Lily decided that she would not listen to her mum than.

"I want ice cream now!!"

The adults stopped dead at the toe curling scream that sounded from the tiny seven year old. James, Scorpius and Rose had taken to protecting their ears, while Lily stepped up to Draco, her little hands fisted into tight balls, and her once tanned skin now crimson against a set of snapping green eyes.

" I dunno what you did to make that lady so mad mister, but I want ice cream and my mummy and aunt won't get me ice cream until you and her stop making them laugh!" She huffed loudly not even blinking as Draco met the little girls gaze head on noting the little finger now pointed firmly at him.

For the first time Draco actually realized who this little piece of offspring belonged to. Who the black haired boy standing next to his son belonged to and the little girl with the disaray of orange curls blocked on her head and Enchanted Encounters gripped in her hand, belonged to.

" And by the way mister, my mummy hits my daddy like that, and he takes it much better than you do!"

Both witches gasped in horror as both daughter and niece dropped her finger back to her side, but kept her chin held high toward Draco.

Scopius and James were falling over one another in new fits of laughter.

And Draco joined them.

" You really are your father's daughter."

" Of course I am!"

Draco laughed harder. He knew that Nora was ready to beat the truth out of him. He realized that Granger and the she-weasel could at any moment reveal him to his son and wife with one cursed word. He got that any second now the Daily Prophet could show up and begin to snap his picture and print a retraction concerning his supposive death. But it was hard to stop killing himself with laughter, when Harry Potter's little girl, his bloody clone, was berating him harder than what his wife had just pulled on him

" Of course you are."

" Lily. Come here please." Before joing her dumbstruck mother, she stuck her finger out at Draco again and wagged it fiercly in his face. Draco took this as the littlest Potter's one final warning, before she tried her luck one more time at getting the ice cream she so desperatley wanted.

" Griffindor through and through." He rose from the stooped postion he had sunk to once Lily had taken her place in between her Aunt and mother.

" I would hope so." Ginny shot at Draco. " James, we're leaving!"

" But I wanna take Scorp to the joke shop Mum!"

"Scorp?" Draco was looking at his son now, standing almost shoulder to shoulder with another clone based Harry Potter. Minus the scar and the glasses, this kid was a shoe in if the wizarding world ever shot a movie based on the boy-who-lived. It was strange to see it. A Malfoy and a Potter grouped together, and not opposite one another, head to head, wand to wand. Prejudice already set like stone in one of them. The task to save the world from an evil wizard on the others shoulders.

" Yeh Dad! Can we please go?!"

There was no prejudice between the two little wizards. There wasn't any family bonds and morals building solid, unmovable barriers between them.

And his son was smiling. Pleading while smiling, but all the same, he was smiling. Draco wouldn't take that away from him, and it could be, very easily, because of what he continued to keep hidden from his family.

" If Mrs. Potter, Mrs. Weasley and your mum are okay with it, I'm okay with it."

Both boys hooted in delight.

Ginny had heard Malfoy wrong. She was sure of it " What?"

" You'd leave your child with us?" This was Hermione now, still unable to connect who she was seeing with what she had believed to be for six years. " Have you lost your mind Malfoy?!"

" Maybe." He sauntered a look toward his wife, who yes, was still seething with her husband. To him, Nora had never looked prettier. " A long time ago."

" Come on Mum!" James was already pulling Scorpius through the crowds, away from the adults still gaping at one another. Their son waved wildly at his mum and dad before disappearing from their view.

" Look, I know either of you would much rather see me covered in painful boils, than do me a favor..."

" Still quick as ever!" Ginny pushed past Draco with Lily in hand and nodded firmly toward Nora, before both red headed witches followed after James and Scorpius.

" Still a bloody menace!" Draco shouted over his shoulder just in time to see the infuriating woman handle his insult with a graceful but rude hand gesture. " Tell Potter I said congratulations!"

Fortunatley for Draco, his quick reflex was no match for Nora's keen sense of timing. Her hand was preventing the same gesture and gripping it painfully between her fingers, as Ginny Potter disappeared into the crowd mouthing obsenities as she did.

Hermione really did like this woman, even if she was a Malfoy.

" But..." Draco gritted his teeth and sucked in a breath when Nora's nails tucked a little deeper into his skin. " I'd really appreciate it if you could just watch him for a few minutes. Me and my darling wife have some things to discuss."

" Well, I have some things to discuss with my idiot husband actually." Nora finally released her hold on Draco. " But I don't expect either you or your friend to watch our son."

" I have a husband as well." Hermione smiled sweetley at Nora, ignoring the reapearence of Draco's traditional smirk at the mention of Ron. " And I can tell that this is a conversation I wouldn't want to have to put on hold much longer either."

" So you'll watch Scorpius?" Draco growled, his lips very stiff now under the saucy expression both women were directing at him.

" For your wife." The bushy haired witch held out her hand to Nora than. " I'm Hermione by the way."

" Nora."

" Wonderful." Merlin, this was fun. She was sure she had never seen Draco Malfoy squirm before. " I assume you used the Leaky Cauldron entrance, so I can meet you there with Scorpius in about a half an hour?"

" I wonder if half an hour is enough time for me to find a reasonable place to dump a body?" She spoke to Hermione, but of course Nora had directed her flippant question to her husband, the body in question.

" Loads I would think." Hermione's face hurt she was grinning so hard. When she turned to catch the last glimpse of Draco and Nora Malfoy already in the grips of what looked like more of a one sided conversation, she couldn't help herself from any kind of refrain.

" If you need and help let me know! No one would ever find him!!"

**Oh my! This was so much fun to write!**

**So Draco comes clean next chapter! ( As much as I'll let him) I want to keep his distaste for muggles a secret a little longer because I already know how and when it will finally come out! **

**So the truth comes out. Scorpius is off to Hogwarts (DH epilogue compliant) without Draco's receading hairline. Harry and Ron are introduced!**

**Also, the end of chapter eight will have Gregory Goyle, Deidra Crabbe and Ebon Greyback meeting up with their old friend and his wife.**


	8. Chapter Eight

**Chapter Eight**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

Nora had never wanted to get married. At the age of seventeen, she did just that.

She had never wanted children. During what should have been her honeymoon, she got just that.

According to her mother, it served her teenage daughter right. Falling for a handsome face with loads of charm would only gain her misery, which, to Nora's dismay, it did. A year after Scorpius was born, her husband got himself into a gamble he could never get himself out of. Three days after her son's first birthday, she had the task of identifying a broken, bruised and bloodied corpse.

Nora promised herself she would never give into a pretty package again. She decided giving into such packages only led to the well designed disaster ticking away beyond the eye catching wrapper. Needless to say, the very last thing Nora needed for herself and more importantly her son, was another unforseen bomb exploding once more on their lives.

A pretty package Nora was presently bonded to for life, now sat across from her tapping his fingers diligently against a drink she was sure he needed. His eyes were anywhere but hers, and the billowing neon green umbrella that hovered over their heads, was doing it's job, casting shadows across both of their faces and hiding expression and emotion from the others view.

Marriage? Another child with the prospect of more? Four years ago, the idea seemed to sit at a comfortable distance. Than a blond idiot with a storm of silver for eyes, and a slow smile that slid over her skin...ran his car into hers.

The possibilities after that seemed to sit a little closer to Nora.

Until now.

" Lord Voldermort?"

Draco nodded.

" Harry Potter?"

He nodded again.

" This doesn't sound real Draco."

" To you, it wouldn't." He glanced about the little cafe he had been ultimatley dragged to, eyes and ears once again trained on him. " But does any of this seem real to you?"

" No." Nora didn't have to think on it. " I guess not."

" I was raised a certain way. My father made it his business to make sure of it." Draco staggered a sneer beyond Nora's shoulder where three older witches sat huddled together, whispers and manic expressions surrounding them like a bubble. " And I made it my business to enforce everything he taught me."

He sighed heavily when a fearful hiss escaped one of the women once she met Draco's glare. " What my father wanted I wanted. What my father did, I tried my best to imitate. I did it well...at least I thought I did. Lucius was mad, Nora. And not the kind of crazy that can be cured with some muggle prescription either."

It was the first time he had used the word muggle in front of her. To her. A familiar surge of disgust crept deep into the pit of his stomach.

" My father wanted the wrong kind of wizard to be in power of this world. He supported Voldermort and his beliefs and trained me to do the same. There was a war in the works and my family ended up involved more than I think my father had anticipated. He ended up being sent to prison before my sixth year at Hogwarts and I was left with the work he hadn't finished. The worst of it was, I wanted to finish it." When he finally searched out his wife she was listening, but blankly. " I was my father's son through and through and I was branded his heir in more ways than one."

Nora watched him roll up his sleeve to disclose the familiar faded ink of a large serpent curling about a skull. When she first met him, Nora had never taken Draco as the type to draw on his picture perfect body. Only when he finally coaxed her out of her clothes and into his bed for the first time, did she notice the intricate work settled on his forearm. She had hated it than. She hated it now.

" This was once a sign of my allegiance to Voldemort and his cause. It made me a deatheater...and it meant I was to do his bidding."

A horrible feeling crushed Nora as her husband continued to talk.

" I did rotten things Nora. Things that I never wanted you or Scorpius to know about. I'm not proud of it, but at the time I was. I wanted nothing more than to prove myself to my father and an evil I agreed with." Draco had never forgotten the feeling that had been seared into him once his forearm had taken on the dark mark. At seventeen, he had become a deatheater. He finally had more than just pure blood and a wand, he had the power to back it all up and the right to use it however he was ordered to." I released deatheaters like myself into Hogwarts, and set them on my classmates. I was ordered to kill my headmaster and wanted to."

" People died...right there on the floors of my school. And I had helped it. I had wanted to see them dead." His memory would never let him forget the bodies. The names. The blood. " I did what I thought I had to. I thought that if I did I could get my father out of prison. I could save my parents from certain death and in the process help me get where I thought I wanted to be."

Everything made sense to her now. And that horrible feeling began to suffocate her.

" You kept all of this from me for so long Draco." Nora's voice was a pitch lower than a whisper. When Draco glanced away and out of his thoughts and cold memories, he found her face stained with tears and pain. He watched her gather herself from the table, shaking her head as she did.

" Nora." Panic threatened to burst from under his skin. Draco rose to his feet as well, reaching for her hand, which he watched Nora gently pull out of his reach.

" I want you to know that your past...this past...it means nothing to me. Whatever you did or didn't do, whatever your reasoning for it all, it means absolutly zero to me. Whatever I assumed about where you came from and why you made such little sense, it never meant anything." Her heart slid to her toes when Draco's outstretched hand fell to his side. " You lied to me Draco. And the only reason why you're coming clean now, is because you have no other choice. That's what matters to me."

" Don't do this Nora."

" Do what?!" She snapped. It was so hard to breath around him. " You never counted on me having a wizard for a child, did you?! Was it too late to back out of it Draco? Was the ring already on my finger or were the vows already taken?!" She forced herself to gulp another breath. " A half hour isn't time enough to undo the damage you've done!"

Draco would never forget the way his wife looked at him than. She pushed fallen hair out of eyes that sparkled with fresh tears, and held nothing for the stranger that now stood before her.

" I just want to get my son and go home."

The words slammed into his chest. His throat ached with tears he couldn't let spill. He wished himself into one of his nightmares, begged the greater good for it.

But nothing could have prepared him for this moment.

This is what real pain felt like.

_**A Week Later**_

_**Platform 9 & 3/4**_

The station was streaming with Hogwarts students. House colors flooded about the platform, wrapped about the necks of already sorted children, running about the adults who stood waving and calling out last minute warnings to their incoherant witch or wizard. Nothing had changed. The Hogwarts Express was still on time, and was sure to be leaving at eleven o'clock exactly. Caged owls were being loaded onto the deck of the train, while a scatter few cats were winding about legs to find their owners amongst the already packed compartments.

Scorpius was still clinging to his animal of choice, a long eared bat named Pipa, in one hand, the other hand was still firmly settled in his fathers.

Draco tried to relax for Scorpius's sake, but it was useless. He hadn't relaxed for an entire week, a week that he and Nora had barely spoken unless they had to. She had ordered Draco to tell their son what he had told her, and after a fitful, angry argument between the two, Draco had relented and sat Scorpius down. To his surprise, Scorpius somehow understood what his father was telling him.

" But you're not bad anymore?"

Leave it to Scorpius to ask the obvious but most difficult question to answer.

" No. I'm not bad anymore."

" And Harry Potter really killed Lord Voldemort?!"

Draco wished Nora would have been more interested in the great story of the boy-who-lived like their son, than what the week of silence had been brought on by. She had barely spoken to him, unless it was necessary. Draco decided to take up space on their couch during the nights. He was sick at the thought of having Nora so close to him. If she was close, he would touch her. If he touched her, he was sure to lose a limb.

" Pipa will be fine honey. Look, all the owls are in their cages?" Nora was close to Draco now though, not so much by choice, but more like due to the overflowing platform pushing them together by force.

" Don't worry Scorp, owls don't eat bats." Oversized chickens however, do. " And Pipa really doesn't look that appetizing."

A moment later Nora was pulling her son into a hug that Draco thought he would have to pry Scorpius out of for him to make it on to the train.

" And owl me as soon as you get there, okay?"

" Okay mum."

Scorpius looked to his father before he tugged his way out of his mothers embrace. He didn't have to say anything for Draco to see his hesitance. " You guys will write to me?"

" Of course we will." Nora squeaked ushering the boy into another tight squeeze.

" Everyday if you want kid." Everywhere around him Draco was sure the same concerns and questions were flying between parent and child. He remembered too clearly his first year being sent off to Hogwarts. A house elf named Sammy and his mother had been the only ones to see him off. There was no kisses or hugs or tears shed when the time came for him to board the train. Draco asked his mother to write, she said she would, but knew that if he received one letter the entire year from either of his parents it would have been one hell of a shocker.

" And when the baby comes, I can come and see right?"

" I'll come and get you the second we suspect your little sister or brother is on the way."

He smiled brightly than and in a quick move had wrapped his arms about his father. Draco did the same, folding his son into his own arms, brushing a hand through his tangle of blond hair. Why he had thought this would be easy was beyond him. For three years Draco had woken up to this kid and put him to bed at night. A day hadn't gone by where Scorpius just wasn't there and now it was only occuring to Draco, that for the next ten months he would have to settle for scribbles on a piece of parchment from his son. Draco breathed deeply, trying to calm the hitch in his voice long enough to say something, anything to comfort them both.

" You'll be fine kiddo."

" Even if I get sorted into Huffelpuff." His words were muffled into Draco's shoulder.

Draco chuckled." Even if you get sorted into Huffelpuff."

As he helped pack Pipa the bat into her own safe compartment, Draco knew he was being watched and it didn't take a genius figure out who was watching him and his family. He turned his head slightly, to see who he had expected, talking amongst themselves, Draco being the primary topic of conversation.

Harry Potter hadn't changed much. He was taller of course, the top of his height still a mess of black hair, like his son. He still wore his glasses, and his forehead was still adorned with his famous scar, now his freaken trademark in the wizarding world. He was multi-tasking as usual, talking to his wife and friends, holding his daughter in one hand, while speaking to another mini version of himself. Draco wondered how many more kids he and the she devil had popped out over the last decade and a half. He also wondered when Ron Weasley was going to stop sneering at him. Draco guessed not any time soon.

Weasley who had reached his full height years ago, looked to be the only one out of the four to have changed much. His hair, was still ginger colored, but no longer a disoriented mess. Draco surmised Granger had a hand in his short skinned look. He was bigger now, no longer lanky like his counterpart who to Draco looked as under weight as the day he met the boy wonder. Draco watched Granger scold her husband for something he had said to the little Weasly girl, and couldn't help the smirk slide it's way unto his lips. It wasn't a question as to who still wore the pants in that relationship.

All Draco could do was nod at the two men and hope that Weasley's sneer didn't all of a sudden turn into a battle that he decided it was time to finish up between himself and Malfoy.

" Hey Scorpius! Come on! I saved you a seat!!"

After another hug and kiss to his mother and a wave for his father, Scorpius was off running toward the body of James Potter hanging dangerously out of one of the open windows waving wildly at his parents, little sister, aunt, uncle and cousin.

" For the love of merlin James! You'll be in St. Mungos before you even leave the station!" The train suddenly screamed out and over his mother who was now howling at her son to stick his head back through the window.

Draco waved to Scorpius, than watched him disappear into the train and from he and his wifes view. Nora sniffled. Draco ran a hand through his hair and than down over his face in an attempt to keep his composure. Nora would have the baby soon. Two months. So he would see him in two months. And than there was Christmas. And than he'd be gone until the summer, and merlin only knew what he would come home to...

" He'll be fine Draco." Nora's voice spoke through the clouds of doubt and anxiety clouding his mind. They both stood and watched the train pull out of the station, taking their son away from them, but both of them knowing that this was where he was supposed to be. Hogwarts was where he was supposed to be going.

" I know."

Minutes later, Draco wasn't so sure.

_**Outside King's Cross Station**_

She watched him. Her eyes followed his every movement. When he hugged the half-blood, she had drawn her wand from her robes and had been ready to take to childs life. Goyle would not let it though. The boy was Avedra's. Deidra was free to do what she may with the muggle. Goyle was to apprehend Malfoy. It was a simple plan. Three on one. Draco wouldn't be prepared and he would never see his old comrads creeping out of the darkness to attack.

Deidra watched Draco and his muggle leave the station, the way they had come. She threw her hood up over her head, and along with Goyle, they followed. She had waited too long for this moment. Nothing was going to stop her from destroying the woman Malfoy called his wife. Deidra had dreamt of this. It had tantalized her every sense, and absorbed her. She had invisioned ripping the muggle open and putting her and the filth that grew inside of her on display for her former lover to bask in.

They walked through the barrier, and into the muggle world in silence. Deidra kept her eyes trained on Draco as he walked in between a row of muggle contraptions, his hands stuffed into his pants pockets, and his black tailored coat hanging over one of his restrained arms. Just that simple sight, intoxicated Deidra. When he cocked his head toward his wife, and moved his lips to speak to her, to this unworthy, dirty, polluted little bitch, her blood burned under her skin.

They were to be married...he was going to ask her. He had needed time, so she gave it to him. Deidra knew that this time had included other woman, the alcohol, the drugs, but she loved him. He would change. She would help him change. When they were married and the children came, he would see her. He would finally see her. Draco loved her...he loved her...Not this tainted muggle.

He could never love a muggle.

_" Crucio!!"_ Deidra's anger and rage burst from the end of her wand in a flash of searing hot white light. It hit Nora square in the back, sending her to the asphalt, agonizing screams ripping from her quaking frame.

Draco heard the curse. Watched it hit Nora.

He fell to his knees, his hands pressed against his wifes trembling body as if he could mend the source of her pain. Deidra approached both wizard and muggle, her wand still drawn and pointed at Nora begging the screaming Mrs. Malfoy to give her more of a reason to blast her again.

" So sad Draco. I never thought I would see you on your knees before a muggle."

He found his voice. Somehow he found it. He also found his wand, stuffed in his pocket. Draco gripped it between his fingers, feeling his pulse hammering at the tips.

" Whatever it is you want Deidra, she has nothing to do with it." He had felt her there, before he had even seen her.

" No." Deidra sought out his eyes. When he finally met her gaze she embraced his recognition of her. " She doesn't. But she'll serve as entertainment for now."

" Lift the curse Deidra." He spat. Nora was still shaking under his free hand. A sweat had broken out on her forehead. Her skin was slick but cold. There was no movement under her closed eyes, even as a fresh scream burst from her almost white lips.

" You're in no place to be making demands Draco."

" That's not a demand darling, that sounds to me like a very blatant order."

Draco saw the two men now. Gregory Goyle stood behind Deidra, his wand drawn, a very blank look closing in on his very blank features. Beyond the witch and wizard, came the voice he now placed a face with. Ebon Greyback sauntered towards Draco, his snapping green eyes enjoying the scene before him.

" We have it under control Greyback! We don't need you!"

" Oh it seems like you might. Of all things to forget dear Deidra, you both have forgotten the wand he has gripped in his hand at this very moment!"

_" Stupefy!" _The spell he weilded hit Goyle who fell backward like a tree falling in the woods. Deidra screeched in frustration at her own stupidity and distraction, before thowing herself at Draco, who was ready for her outburst.

_" Duro!"_ She was too quick though, and with her small size it was easy for her to avoid his uncoming curse.

" Get the muggle!" Deidra shreiked again, this time directing it at Ebon, who was just watching the preceeding battle with a calmness that was unnerving even to Draco. " Get her!"

Draco had move away from his wife in the midst of the curses and spells he had been trying to fight off, and when he saw Ebon pulling Nora to her feet, his long knife like nails peircing her bloodless skin, he realized that if Deidra got close enough to touch either of them, she would apparate them.

Kill her.

The words blended into his brain.

Kill her.

His wand twitched in his hand. Ebon was caressing Nora's skin, breathing in her scent.

" I see you still havn't learnt to share Malfoy."

Draco saw the hunger in his eyes. Ebon saw the danger in Draco's, and with a pleasure only a werewolf could know, stabbed Nora's swollen stomach with his claw.

Nora's eyes snapped open, a gasp leaving her open mouth.

_" Avada Ked-"_

_" Expelliarmus!" _

Draco's wand flew from his hand before he could finish the killing curse. Harry Potter shot another spell, this time directed at Ebon. It missed Nora expertly and met it's target square in the face. The werewolf howled in pain and fell away from her, letting her body fall back to the ground. He stumbled backward, clutching his face, now smoking and burning under his hands.

Ron was upon him than, while Harry continued to throw curses at Deidra who was doing her best to keep up with the battle he was waging on her. Colors and flashes streamed through the air between the two, both missing and dodging the other. Goyle had already awoken from his stuper and upon seeing now three wizards instead of just the one apparated. Ebon had managed escape from Ron, leaving him with a nasty gash to his cheek. Deidra was alone, with three wizards, one being an Auror, and she knew, more on the way

" This isn't over Draco!" She screamed as a blast from Harry's wand hit her left arm, causing her to fall backward onto the ground. The sight of the blond wizard cradling the muggle in his arms, the arms she used to lie in, only intensified the rage, her jealousy, and her careless words. " He's probably already dead! Your boy! Sent him off to his death when you put him on that train!"

Scorpius.

" But don't worry too much dear Draco..."

Blood stained the pavement, clung to his clothes. Smeared the skin of his hands.

" Avedra will save you a piece of your little half blood."

Nora was dying. His son was in danger. The baby...

" After all, she is your family. She is your blood."

Moments later Deidra Crabbe was gone.

**Oh my, well, read and review. I don't know how i feel about this chapter. I know it's longer than I wanted, that I do know. Let me know what you think...**

**One thing I do know, and I hope I am doing my job at detailing, is the woman in this fan fic I wanted to portray as strong. Even Avedra and Deidra who I love writing for, I wanted to have them seen as the leaders and the ones wearing the pants, even though they are out of their minds. Of course Hermione and Ginny are strong characters, due to Jo Rowling and her amazing writing, and I have plans for Nora. (of course)**

**Anyway next chapter, is of course taking place at St. Mungos.**

**What will happen to Scorpius? Hmmmm. The baby? I don't think I have the heart...**

**Thanks to: Padsy, huddelup, jc52185 and BackToLife! My only reviewers but more than appreicated ones! Stick with me!**


	9. Chapter Nine

**Chapter Nine**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

**Thanks to my constant reviewers!! **

A blur.

Everything was a blur.

He could hear their voices though, shouting to each other and yelling at him with urgency. To do what? Draco didn't know. One of them was ordering another to apparate his bleeding wife to St. Mungos. Another voice was pitching a fit about the train their children were presently on. His son was on. He had sent him to his death. That's what she had said wasn't it?

" Malfoy!"

He was drowning in the blur of words and faces. Every color turned to heavy shades of black and white when he tried to focus on the shapes hovering over him. All except the crimson color of Nora's blood, screaming at him from the ground she lay under and his hands that just wouldn't let her lifeless body go.

" He's in shock Harry!"

" I don't think I can apparate the both of us." His voice wasn't his own. It cracked and shook when he spoke. " Take her. Someone take her."

Before he could bend his head to glimpse his wife again, she was gone from his hands the only reminder she had ever been there was the blood that had drained from her body.

" Malfoy!"

Harry was standing over him. Draco slowly got to his feet, feeling crippled and heavy.

" The Aurors intercepted the train. There was no sign of Avedra or any other death eater." It was Ron's voice mixing with Harry's. " They're staying with the train until it reaches Hogwarts."

" Malfoy! Did you hear Ron? He's fine. Scorpius is okay."

" McGonagall's been informed. The protection spells are still in tact about the school, and the staff is going about strengthening them as we speak."

" She's a muggle."

Both men stopped speaking instantly, training their eyes on Draco like a bullet blasting from a gun.

" Who? You're wife?" He had to be in shock, Harry thought. Draco must be in some alternate universe where he forgot to spit after using the dirty word. Ginny said nothing about Draco's wife being a muggle? Harry looked to Ron, who looked just as boggled by the paler than usual wizard standing before them.

" He's muggleborn." Whatever happened to mudblood? Ron shook his head in disbelief.

" Scorpius?"

" She's going to kill them to get to me." The lineage. Avedra's lineage. Draco's lineage. How did she know? How did she find him? " She won't stop until they're dead."

" Malfoy." One of them said his name, he had no idea which one.

" I have to get to the hospital." Draco forgot the pair of wizards he had now sent into their own state of shock. " I have to get to the hospital."

" Tell Hermione we're gone to the castle." Harry spoke above his own amazement with this unfamiliar Draco. " Tell her the kids are at Molly Weasley's, okay? Can you do that Malfoy?! Malfoy! Can you do that?!"

There was so many questions that Harry wanted to ask, questions he knew he had to ask. His work for the Order had not stopped after Voldemort was destroyed. He knew that there was more than a few deatheaters still hiding away, and he knew that the woman Malfoy was referring to was one of them.

Draco nodded, stuffing the orders from the boy-who-lived into a compartment in his brain where he would try and retrieve it later.

Later when Nora was fine. When she was yelling and smacking him upside his head again. Later when she wasn't bleeding her blood, and their baby was still snug and safe in her womb. Later when she opened her eyes to look at Draco, and he saw life there, within the eyes that he had lost himself in long ago.

" Don't tell my son what's happened Potter."

" I won't Malfoy."

Silence wrapped about them, before words Draco had never a spoken to either Harry or Ron suddenly developed and escaped him.

" Thank you."

The three wizards stared at one another for what seemed like days, a quick reality sinking feircly within the men when the two simple words were spoken from the enemies mouth.

" Both of you...thank you."

The reality was ironic and odd. It was unsettling and hilarious. It was insane but somehow made sense.

With two words of appreciation, the wizard with the dark mark forged on his left forearm was no longer the enemy.

* * *

" I don't know Malfoy! I'm sorry. I've been asking them to tell me, but I'm not family..."

" What room is my wife in?!" Draco turned his back from a sobbing Hermione Weasley, and landed his frustration and panic on top of the head of a tiny woman with wild unruly turqoise hair. The secretary with the tag name Fifi, sat behind an oval reception desk blankly staring at the sniffling witch and the red faced wizard, who was now yelling at her.

" We cannot let you see your wife at this time Mr. Malfoy." Her voice stayed calm, like this scenario had been part of her training and Draco was her first test.

" I don't bloody give a flying fuck what you cannot do! I want to see my wife!" The words _do you know who I am _almost spat from his mouth, but he decided that St. Mungos and it's staff knowing who he was, could possibly hinder his wife and unborn baby getting the help they needed. " So either do whatever it is you do, get off your witless ass and find me the bloody healer who is taking care of Nora Malfoy!"

" Sir screaming at me will get you no closer to seeing the patient." A pair of bored eyes traveled away from him. " When your wife is stable enough to take visitors, I'm sure Healer Bruxy will be down to speak with you."

" Are you kidding me!?" Draco fell backwards when Hermione pushed him solidly out of the way. When her hands slapped down hard on the oval desk, Fifi jumped in her swivel seat, her attention now on full alert before the seething woman glowering at her. " I understand that you have a job to do, and that this is probably the most exciting aspect about it, but let me assure you this man is not a visitor. Besides being a husband and a father to the patient, he's also a former deatheater."

Fifi's violet colored eyes snapped to Draco, whose mouth was hanging open and directed at Hermione who to his horror, was still talking.

" Now, this can go one of two ways Fifi. You can either go about the rest of your life knowing that this deatheater knows what you look like, your name, where you work or you can point us in the direction to where Mrs. Malfoy is being cared for, and he goes away, closer to seeing his wife and farther away from you."

" First floor. Creature induced injuries." Fifi squeaked, still staring at Draco in fear. " I'm not sure of the room number sir, I'm sorry."

Draco launched himself away from the desk, taking no time to defend himself to the little receptionist who was now on the verge of tears. Hermione followed him, taking on a small run just to keep up with his long strides. The first floor opened up to them, two massive glass doors swinging open for them before Draco had a chance to slam his weight into it.

It was a smaller ward, maybe the smallest of St. Mungos. The hallway was long, white and looked clean like someone had bleached all the color out of the walls, floor and the ceiling. Draco squinted his eyes against the harshness that enveloped him and Hermione as they walked the length of the corridor. Room after room was on either side of them, and there was no sign of life from behind any of them. The silence urked him. He cleared his throat that was constricting with each step he took towards another large oval desk, just so he could hear something other than Hermione's heels as they tapped away behind him.

Behind the desk a man about his age stood with his head down over a yellow file, obviously absorbed in whatever he was reading. Draco knew he was a healer by the dress robe he was wearing. It was floor length and a deep shade of gold, with a thick white collar about his neck in the shape of a V. There was a pen stuck behind the wizards ear, and the tip of his wand was visible from one of the folds in the material.

When Draco cleared his throat again, the man looked up from his parchment and nodded his acknowlegement. " Mr. Malfoy?"

Draco nodded. " My wife. Nora Malfoy..."

The healer nodded as well, and stepped out from behind the desk taking another three files with him as he did. He offered Draco his hand which he took inadvertantly. His mind was no where near the mannerly introductions the healer was making. All Draco knew was Nora was somewhere behind one of theses doors and he needed to be there with her.

" Where is she?"

" We have her resting in a special room at the moment Mr. Malfoy. But if I could, I do have some questions about your wifes health history as well as the attack itself. "

" Is she okay? Is the baby okay?"

A sudden flurry of pity washed across the healers expression that had went from professional to human all too quickly. Draco sucked in a breath, feeling his knees buckle slightly when the healer asked him if he would sit down.

" We do have more tests that we will need to do before I can divulge any kind of prognosis."

" What kind of tests?" Hermione had decided to sit once Draco refused it. Her gaze slid between Draco and Bruxy as the healer continued to speak.

" Your wife Mr. Malfoy, was infected when the werewolf attacked her. We're lucky she wasn't bitten however. If that had been the case, the effects would have been irreversable." Henry Bruxy wished the man would take a seat. " For precaution we do have your wife quarantined. I myself have never worked a werewolf case, where the victim of the attack was a muggle, so I have my staff especially the ones who have seen these kind of cases before working diligently to make sure that any infection is cleared from her system before we release her."

" The baby." His voice was strained again and thick from the newest emotion he was encountering. His heart was tight in his chest and every beat it took gave way for another surge of heaviness he couldn't place. The baby. His child. He realized than how little time he had spent thinking on his first born. While Nora was re-reading books, taking breathing classes and buying small pieces of clothes for their child, Draco had been more worried about everything else that was tangled up in his life. Sure he had been there for the sonograms and the ultrasounds. He had been intrigued and just a little freaked out when the sounds of a faster than light heartbeat had began to echo off the walls of the doctors office decorated with smiling toothless babies staring at him from the posters that didn't move. He had done what was expected of him as a father to be, but now that he thought about it, now that his kids life hung so dangerously in the balance, Draco realized he didn't know the child, his child, growing in his wifes stomach. The thought clutched at his heart and twisted it with no mercy.

" The baby is extremly weak Mr. Malfoy. The heart rate is low and we have done everything we can to bring it to a more stable level, but at the moment it has not changed in a positive way."

He was going to throw up.

" When the werewolf stabbed your wife, it missed the child and the womb, which in itself served as a protective barrier from the wound. Instead, the curse that Nora was hit with did more damage to the baby. That's why the heart rate is so low. We beleive that the child is almost caught in the curse."

" Caught?"

Draco couldn't speak. He was glad Hermione was there to do it for him.

" When the curse hit Nora, her body, and the life growing inside of her absorbed the after shocks. Presently, the baby is still enduring the pain."

" You must be able to do something!" Hermione was on her feet again, like this time she was going to threaten the healer with Draco's deatheater status.

" The only thing we could do would be to deliver the child now, but it would be dangerous to both mother and baby to do so. The infection is being fought, but the extraction could hinder the progress Nora is making as well as drop the babies heart rate considerably." He took a haggard breath. " But it could also go the other way as well. We keep the child inside it's mother while we wait for Nora to fight off any remnant of infection and we could end up losing them both in the process."

Draco's head shot up from the clean white ground he was standing on. " Lose them?"

" Yes Mr. Malfoy. Either way it is very likely that your wife, the baby or both could be at extreme risk if we do something or we don't do anything."

" Jesus...no." Draco turned away from both healer and Hermione, and paced his way to the other end of the hall. His hands went to his hair, than down over his face where they stayed while he tried to breath through the panic clawing it's way through him. When a fist slammed against the brick wall of the ward, the healer jumped slightly. Hermione did nothing. Yes, it was Draco Malfoy waging war on a wall that was going to win, but no one, not even a Malfoy deserved to be in the place that he was now in.

" You have to do something!" Draco came up for air, not noticing the skin on his knuckles was torn and shredded. Drops of his blood spotted the floor and left a trail toward the healer and Hermione as he made his way back to them. " Do something!"

The healer took a step back from the wizard now closing in on him. " But they may die.You do undertand that?"

" You said that either way I could lose my wife and our child. I'm not going to stand by and do nothing, not even try to save them and let them go without some kind of fight! Do you understand me?!"

" You'll...you'll have to sign consent...a consent form." The man looked mental. His eyes were hazy with simmering hot rage as he peered down at the healer.

Draco ripped the pen from behind Henry Bruxy's ear, who took two more steps away from the manic wizard. " I'll sign it. But I want it made perfectly clear that that woman and that baby are mine. Do you get that? They are mine. This hospital can do things that no muggle hospital in the fucking world is capable of, so if anyone, anyone can save the lives of my family it's you. And I expect it. I expect you to keep them both breathing."

" Malfoy, please."

Hermione had put herself between Draco and the now quaking healer. Bruxy took this as his cue to run off and grab the insential paperwork that the deranged Mr. Malfoy would have to sign in order for him and his team to begin the proceedings.

" Do you know what you're asking of him?"

" Yes." He growled.

Draco clutched the arms of the chair he had taken a seat in, feeling the tips of his fingers pulsing away under the pressure. He knew it. Deep down he knew it. But he had to do something, he couldn't sit by and do nothing. Nora would want him to do this. He knew that all too well. If he didn't, she would never forgive him, and that was worse that him never forgiving himself.

The healer appeared before them both again, and handed Mafloy three pieces paper. The pen he held twitched in his hand as it rested against the white sheet with prominent black lettering shreiking up at him as he read the reality of what he was about to agree to.

And before he knew his hand had even moved and formed the letters to make his name, he was passing the parchments back to the healer, signed and consented.

* * *

" The Sorting Ceremony has been postphoned due to recent happenings that has detained Headmistress McGonagall for the duration of the evening. All first years, will be sorted tommorow afternoon, but for the time being will spend the night in the great hall."

The great hall filled with murmurs and whispers at the announcment, but not one of the first years made any kind of peep. Maybe it was because of the ultimate awe that they were all presently under, or maybe it was due to the unimaginable food now decorating the tables before them that had distracted them all from the obvious concern and anxiety washing about the walls of Hogwarts.

Somehow it was a good thing. Scorpius barely noticed the professors whispers and glances his way. James as well was too busy impressing a group of girls with the stories and antics of his famous father to take notice. Rose was engrossed in another book, only coming up for air to swipe a chocolate off the table or steal a glance at the white blond wizard seated across from her. When the doors to the hall opened up and the aurors that had taken the train hostage made another appearance, only than did all three children make an attempt at craning their necks above the crowd to see the upheaval the cloaked witches and wizards were causing.

" Where's your dad Rosie?" James used Scorpius's shoulder as leverage to see over the second years now blocking his view.

Rose shrugged, but kept her eyes trained on the group that her father was absent from. " I don't know...I wonder what's happened?" She hated her fathers job. Sure it was noble and he was doing work that she knew he loved, but he was still her dad and she worried whenever he was called out to hunt the bad wizards. As far as Rose was concerned her father didn't need to be an Auror to be a hero for the world. It should be enough that he was her hero all the time.

" I heard Lola Longbottom say that the Aurors stopped and boarded the train because of it was going to be attacked or something." James had given up his attempt to see over the heads of his classmates and went back to stabbing his fork at another mouthful of garlic mashed potato.

" Why would anyone want to attack a train full of kids?" Rose ventured a look to Scorpius, who shrugged in return. She noticed than that his ice blue eyes looked worried. " Are you okay Scorpius?"

He nodded, and went back to studying these Aurors. They fought bad wizards. Dragged them off to Azakaban prison according to James and left them there to rot because of the evil things that they've done.

Scorpius had heard alot on the way to Hogwarts. He was glad his dad had told him the story of Harry Potter and Voldemort. It didn't make him feel so left out of the world he was only new to. James had no problem filling him in on everything that was of importance, and did so the entire train ride. So Scorpius was now familiar with James dad, and Rose's mum and dad. He knew that they were all in Griffindor house and James knew he was going to be in his fathers old house as well. Rose didn't seem to really care where she got placed, but when Scorpius asked her if she would mind Huffelpuff, she cringed, and he knew how she felt. James said he was a half blood. Rose told him that being a halfblood was perfectly fine, and she as well as James were far from pureblood. He didn't understand, and decided that the candy lady at their compartment door was more interesting then blood.

" You'll be in Slytherin."

" Why?"

James popped a bertie bottes jelly bean into his mouth, than screwed up his face and spit it out, proving the pink bean was anything but sweet. " Because your dad's a Malfoy and my dad told me that generations of Malfoys have always been placed in Slytherin."

" Really?"

" Yup." James tried again with a fresh jelly bean and this time came up with a bean that tasted much better than the pink one now joining the wrappers piling up at their feet." I thought you would have known that?"

Scorpius thought so too, but decided not to say anything.

The hall was slowly emptying now, all except for the first years who were ordered to stay where they were. Rose went back to reading her newest book _Hogwarts: A history. _James continued to eat, and than eat some more. Scorpius tried to distract himself, either by staring at the sky above their heads, or by flicking well hidden looks Rose Weasley's way. He found the latter distracted him more so than the ceiling sparkling above him.

The group of Aurors had dispearsed from the great hall as well, but for some reason Scorpius guessed that they were still in the castle. He watched some of the ghosts hover up and down the tables, every now and than blinking their very much alive eyes towards the windows of the hall. Scorpius reminded himself that the ghosts, especially a nasty one named Peeves, the giant name Hagrid and his even bigger of a giant brother Gworp who had greeted them once off the train would be two things he would need to ask his father about. He already disliked Peeves very much and wondered why his dad hadn't mentioned the nasty ghost.

When a raven colored owl swooped down towards the table where the three children sat and dropped a letter directly on to Scorpius's plate, he knew what this was. His dad had told him about the owl he owned, how he was black like a crow and had a tendency to bite if it didn't like who it was delivering the post to. Fortunatley, for Scorpius the owl he knew to be named Daemon, clucked quietly and briskly let Scorpius run a hand through his feathers before taking off again to wherever owls go when they weren't playing postman.

" You got a letter already?" James spoke though a mouthful of sweet bread.

Scorpius nodded, upon seeing his fathers handwriting scibbled across the front of the envelope. His heart jumped slightly in his chest, but he hoped his delight at the letter wasn't too obvious. Besides James now hanging over his shoulder probing him to open it up, Rose looked interested as well. The last thing he wanted either of them to think was he was already home sick for his family...

He opened it quickly, hoping that his dad didn't ask too many questions and his mom kept the mushy stuff for when he came home to see the baby.

_Hey Kiddo,_

_Yes, we miss you already. After you left your mum cried, but she knows you're okay were you are. And that's the main thing right?That you and your friends are safe. I heard that the sorting ceremony was being put off, and I have to apologize to you for that. I know that you're looking forward to being sorted into Griffindor and even though I didn't try it, I did have some hand in the reason as to why you aren't in your yellow and red house colors yet._

_Now, I can't get into details Scorpius, but I want you to know that everything is okay. After you left today, mum was hurt. We got her to the hospital, a wizarding hospital called St. Mungos and the healers here took care of her. A healer is just like a doctor Scorp, except they use magic to make people better, like they did for mum._

_Anyway, the reason why I can't get into a detailed explanation, is because I'm busy making sure your mum is getting better, which she is. She wanted me to write to you and tell you how much we love you kid, and we can't wait to see you...oh and I almost forgot, we also wanted to tell you that you're a big brother now Scorp. That's another reason why I can't write as long and as much as I would want to. I'm busy with not just one lady, but two now. We haven't got a name for your little sister yet, and we decided to wait until you got here to see her for yourself, maybe help us go about it right._

_She's really screaming now Scorp, not the baby, your mum. Something about water and me being useless, so I'd better go and tend to them both._

_We love you Scorp and I'll write again tommorow and let you know when you can come and see your sister._

_Love so much_

_Dad and Mum _

_ps: Watch out for the poltergeist called Peeves. I think I might have forgotten to mention him._

**Read and Review Please!!**

**Please let me know what you think! **

**To Huddelup: I thought about the idea of infecting the baby or Nora and having one or both maybe become a werewolf of some kind. I think it's a wicked idea, but I would end up all over the place with this story. Although I think it would tie in well with Draco trying to come to terms with the love he feels for Nora and his family as well as dispising himself for loving a muggle...imagine trying to love a muggle turned werewolf? That would be a story!**

**Anyway people, next chapter Avedra and her gang of deatheaters will make another appearance. When I wrote that she will not stop until Draco's family is dead, I really did mean it. Oh the drama! I plan to have Draco and Avedra come face to face soon. Ultimatums of course will be made. Question is, who will be making them? **

**Also, if anyone has any suggestions for the newest Malfoys name that would be awesome to see!! Post!!**

**Once again, REVIEW!! PLEASE!!**


	10. Chapter Ten

**Chapter Ten**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

**Authors Note: **_**I realized I mixed up James and Albus and whose in their first year with Scorpius. Sorry for the mistake. I've been trying really hard to keep the story authentic and have it tie in well with the HP books, but I've decided to keep the characters where they are now, seeing how the relationships have been built now. Once again, Padsy if you want the job of editor I offer it to you! lol! Thanks for the heads up!**_

The Malfoy Manor was a broken shell of what it once was. Abandoned, it now stood against the black sky, blending well into the dark night surrounding it. The boards binded to the windows, had decayed years before and now hung from the nails that had fought the erosion for so long. Beyond the splintered and shattered door, there was no air to breath. It was cold, like death had crept into and about every crevice, destroying what life had once been offered to the mansion. The many rooms were forgotten under a thick layer of dust, the only signs that the manor had once occupied something other than rodents and spiders, were the discarded empty bottles that lay strewn about the floors of the rooms and the hallways.

What pictures had been about the house no longer moved, the figures now frozen inside their frames. Curtains of deep forest green, now looked more grey. The family portraits had been deserted just as the manor had been, the evil that had lived inside them moved on to commit their torture elsewhere.

It was apparent whatever magic had enveloped the manor was gone, had disappeared when it's master had parted ways with a place he no longer had use for.

Avedra Lestrange stared blankly about the room she had escaped to. It was once his. When he was a child this was where her cousin lived most of his summer and winter holidays away from his poisonous school. Within these four walls that had once been branded with his house colors, his posters of his favorite game Quidditch, and an odd scattered photo of he and his mother, this was where Draco had been raised and molded by his father.

She wondered how long it had taken for her Uncle Lucius's work to wear thin on his son. Avedra wondered if by some chance it hadn't at all. This is what she hoped for at least. She was ready to fight with Draco, if that's what it had to come down to. She had no problem making him do what she wanted. It would be more than a pleasure to force him back to what he had left.

Her white hand danced across and through the green silk and silver folds that hung from the four poster bed now resting on one leg. But what if Draco still had it in him? What if the prejudice his father had instilled in him since his birth, were hidden somewhere inside her dear cousin? Avedra shivered at the thought. Hate was a hard emotion to rid from ones body and mind once it has taken hold. She knew that. Her mother lived that. Avedra was postive that Draco hadn't forgotten that.

" Avedra."

" What is it?"

" The baby...it was born."

" Alive?"

A cough branched through the darkness of the room. " Yes. Alive."

Her hands tightened on the silk, the blue and purple of her veins popping behind the strained skin." You didn't do what I asked than."

Goyle forced his mouth to stay shut. There was no sense agreeing with her. There was no sense even placing the blame on Deidra, where in the end, that was where it belonged. He knew that Avedra knew this already. Goyle wondered wether she would let the jealous witch live after the events of the failed attack were revealed. He was willing to bet against Deidra living to see next light.

" Draco is fully aware now. I have no doubt that he is taking the proper precautions to protect his family from what he knows is coming." She lifted her stone solid gaze toward Goyle, but did not see him. " To go along with this, he now has the help of Harry Potter, who I'm sure has no problem coming out of semi-retirement to help put a few more simple deatheaters behind the bars of Azakaban, even if it is to help a former enemy." She sneered, her teeth gritting as she held back the billowing hate now evolving in her chest like a rapid waterfall. " Such a heartwarming act."

" What is it you want us to do Avedra?" Goyle stayed hidden away in the shadows of the hallway, while he watched the witch with the unblinking eyes saunter from the broken bed, to the floor length window, now reflecting the first signs of morning upon the mansion.

" I want him brought to me, but not by force."

" He will not come Avedra, you must know that."

She grinned and the sun suddenly shrank away from the glass. Avedra's crazed features mirrored back at her from the clear pane that her fingernails were now tapping slowly against.

" He will."

" And what about the muggle and her children?"

" They will still die." She laughed now, loud and thick, her breath catching the glass before her as she did. Of course they will die. The baby was born now, taking it's tiny breaths with it's tiny lungs Avedra wanted to expell all life from. Draco's blood was running through the little half blood dirt. She wondered wether he realized it yet, and if it disgusted him as much as it sickened her. Her eyes glistened with criminal heat." But by whose hand is the question?"

Goyle listened to her screech with sounds that sounded nothing like laughter. Her body shook with force and cackled with the insanity that he knew would never leave her, even when the muggle and her breeds were erased.

" Anything else Avedra?"

" Yes." The laughter died away on her lips, but the grin stayed in it's place.

Avedra's eyes now transixed on the reflection of her mother, staring at her daughter, the same expression tainted against her cold and gaunt face. It was like looking in a mirror. They were so similiar, yet so very different. Her mother had been weak. Weak due to where her allegiances lay, at the feet of a half blood. Bellatrix followed orders and demands. She was insane with devotion to a wizard who in the end lost his battle to the seventeen year old he had lived to kill. Voldemort failed, which in turn, meant her mother did. They had been to slow to lift their wands to commit their murders. She would not make the same mistakes.

" Please tell Deidra I request her presence."

Avedra would never be her mother. She would never be slow to draw her wand.

* * *

Draco had always been a selfish spoiled little wanker. He was raised with something more than a silver spoon in his mouth or all the money his little heart could ever desire. Draco was raised with the knowledge that he was just that privaledged and yes, just that rich. He had never cared for most people, and like his father, used them when the need arose. That was how he saw people, as necessities and if they proved to be of any use to him at all, Draco would and always did use them.

The women in his life had fallen dangerously into that category as well. His mother had always given in to him. In Narcissa's eyes, her son could do no wrong and when he did do wrong, it was somehow justified as right. She rewarded him with his arrogance and was pleased when he did very little to reform to his school and what she thought as binding detailed rules and regualtions. After his mother, there was Pansy, who by Draco's standards was a stepping stone to greater things. She served a purpose, and did it well, but once school had finally let, he made it clear he had had no intention on marrying her and threw her to the side as he had done so many times in the past. Once he had discovered sex and all it's glory, only than did Draco find he was a wonder at using that to his advantage as well, especially when the women who ventured too close to the edge where he played came all too willingly to that cornered point. They gave and he took and life for Draco Malfoy went on as he thought it should.

And than came Nora, a woman who took as much as she gave, and gave as much as she took. If it was possible, she was the most complicated human being he had ever met, and that had intrigued and facinated Draco enough to forget his prejudices for the time being. Time being; turned into months, that had twisted into years, that had finally turned into the day Draco held his daugter in his arms for the first time.

The moment he held his child Draco finally, and for the very first time forgot himself completely. He never would have given such a small lump of life the credit that was due for the emotion that his baby envoked in him the second her little fingers danced across his open hand. And yet, she did. When she opened her eyes to see who was holding her so tightly, Draco saw himself reflected in a pair of silver grey pools of wonder, that squinted and drowsed as his daughter studied her father.

They called her Lyra Blaire Malfoy. She was his daughter, his flesh, his blood. The first halfblood to be born into the Malfoy line.

And for the time being, Draco could forget his prejudice once more.

* * *

" Arrogant son of a bitch!"

" Just figuring that out are you?!"

The sounds of screaming and shouting did very little to awaken the littlest Malfoy now snoozing away in the room opposite of her parents. Her mother had done her part to make sure that her parents argument didn't disturb her by shutting the nursery door, but her father had done a better job at concealing their screaming match by casting a well rehearsed silencing charm about the walls of the room. Either way though, Lyra was far from being awoken even when her mother took to throwing unseen objects directly at her poor fathers head.

" Along with everything else!" A well aimed bar of soap flew from the open bathroom door and missed Draco who was all too familiar with his wifes arm and where she was intending the object to hit. His wife followed the soap, dressed in only his slytherin t-shirt and a pair of knickers. She was well armed with a load of toiletries but thankfully dumped them carelessly into an open suitcase sitting on their bed. Draco slammed her dresser shut and copied her actions by littering the suitcase with her shirts and pants.

" There was no reason to tell you!"

" There was every reason to tell me about your bloody family and their cursed beliefs!"

" Not at the time!" Draco had to fight with himself to not grab the blasted woman and shake her until she understood. " And this...this is besides the point! None of this matters Nora! All I care about is getting you and Lyra away from here and somewhere safe!"

" Safe?! Sending me and the baby into the world where your deranged cousin is?! How is that safe?!"

" It's safer Nora!"

Draco turned away from her, deciding for them both that the conversation was over. She was going and that was it. It wasn't up for debate of discussion. Safety had been offered for Nora and Lyra from the one and only Potter, so he had taken it. If he had forgotten to mention it to Nora up until about a week ago, it was only because he had been adjusting to his new daughter, and reveling in the fact that Nora hadn't taken the news about Avedra and her vendetta towards Draco as badly as he thought she would have. In fact, Nora hadn't been angry with her husband at all. In any case, she had been willing and ready to hop out of the bed she had fought infection and death in, and not to mention delivered their daughter in, and seek out Avedra and her cronies in order to reak some havoc of her own on Draco's murderous cousin.

" Don't pretend to tell me that you know what's best for me Draco!" The anger Nora had not felt toward him had been replaced now, and come full circle. The rage washed across her soft features even as she spoke. " I know what's best for me, and sending me to live under the same roof with strangers is not what's best for me or Lyra! And what about Scorpius?!"

" He's safer at Hogwarts Nora!" Draco twisted to face his wife again. " What don't you understand. You are taking Lyra and you are going to the burrow. I've been offered this by Potter and Weasly and I am taking it."

" Don't dare tell me what I am or am not doing!" She said this even as she threw more garments of clothing into the suitcase. " You lost that right when you so effortlessly lied-"

His hands came about her than, quick enough to have her mouth snapping shut. His hands roped about one of her wrists, the other gripped her arm and pinned it tightly to her side. Draco glared down into a pair of eyes that met his gaze defiantly, daring him to do as he wanted with her. He had to understand where she was coming from, where her anger with him was protruding from, but when he looked into her eyes, all he could see was what he was fighting for. Draco could see her, and could see her love for him still bleeding deeply within his wife like a deadly wound that just would never heal. He saw Scorpius reflected there, smiling, really smiling for the very first time, even with his green and silver house colors wrapped about his boys neck. Than there was Lyra, his daughter who had been born into chaous and had survived a battle that her father had been the cause of. This is what he was fighting for. His family was why he had to finally finish the reasoning behind why he had been marked fifteen years before.

" I effortlessly lied to keep you safe longer." Draco spoke through his teeth, never blinking as he devoured Nora where she stood. " And that time is up."

" I won't go."

" You're going!" He growled, tightening his hold on her and dropping his head toward her cheek. Stubborn woman. She had no idea what was waiting for them all, and he had every intention of keeping it that way. Draco would never make the same mistake again. He now knew Avedra was after him and he was no idiot. He knew why, and this woman, his woman and his children were the reasoning behind the attack. Draco Malfoy had gone and done the unthinkable. He had dirtied up her bloodline. " And if I have to restrain you to do so, I'll take every pleasure in it."

Heat spooked her when the words brushed against her neck. Her eyes fluttered lightly, but shot open again when his lips found the bare skin of her shoulder. His hand loosened about her arm and found it's way to the small of her back and slipped under her shirt to feel the skin there. Nora shuttered slightly as she struggled against him. He was mad if he thought...

"Bastard..." His lips brandished against her own, cutting the words and her oxygen off. His hands pulled her closer to him as he tasted her mouth and all together assaulted her body with his. There was no use fighting him. Nora knew when she was at a loss, and in a fraction of a moment, she had forgotten herself within Draco. Sensations lingered where he kissed her, trailing across her cheeks and dipping low on her neck.

_He had gone and married the muggle_.

Nora forced Draco back against their bed where he sat and lifted her a top of him. His hands grabbed at her shirt and removed it from the body he suddenly was desperate for. Feeling her curves and heated skin under his touch drew him a little farther away from his reality. Her mouth dragged across his mouth and than to his neck, while her hands became lost in his mess of hair.

_He had fallen in love with her son._

Her hands traced his chest as they guided his dress shirt away from his body, now screaming to be against her skin. Her arms wound about him, her legs straddled him and the breath that escaped her when she felt him hard and ready between her legs. His hand slid between her thighs and he staggered a groan when he felt her own readiness for him.

_He had created another life with this muggle._

They fumbled with one another, the desperation cutting the lines of sex shorter than ever before. His lips pushed against her mouth, feeling her teeth snake across his bottom lip. She slid against him, melding with his every limb, and when she guided him inside of her, her head fell limply onto his shoulder any breath she had left within her lungs, leaving her with one action. Draco's head spun against the sensation of her and the tautness of her body when he pushed deeper into his wife, gaining another stricken gasp from her.

" I love you Nora."

His words echoed around her, fighting their way through the haze of lust that had wrapped about her.

" I love you."

She buried her face in his shoulder, fighting the urge to cry out as he moved inside of her, and also struggling to keep his voice close to her as she rode out the pleasure he was berrating her body with.

_He craved this fucking muggle._

" Love you..."

Draco's head fell against her chest, where he could feel her heart skitter under her skin. " But I'll kill you myself before I let her."

**So that came out of left field. **

**I know I haven't been updating and I blame it on life in general. I have zero idea as to where this chapter came from. Zero. It's a tad bit of everything, so I guess that could only mean that the writer is a tad bit all over the place, which I am.**

**Next chapter I plan to get it together. No worries. Also I apologize about the late update, but a new obsession has crept up on me and has taken hold!**

**Yes, TWILIGHT has gotten it's fangs into me and I am in love...and I am ashamed that may be part of the reason I have been late to update! **

**Bad Breeva!**

**Anywho, my heart still belongs to Harry Potter! The Twilight Books are great, but hey, Harry Potter gave us a whole different world to escape to!**

**And that world just happens to have one Draco Malfoy in it...add Edward Cullen and I would have soooo much fun! lol! **

**I'm losing my mind! Please Review!!**


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Chapter Ten**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

The house was small. There was nothing grand about the street it sat on either. It meshed well with the other homes along side of it and opposite it too, so not to bring any attention as to who and what occupied the quaint flat. It was brick, the color more charcoal than black and the door was a deep burgandy displayed with different sized square windows trailing about the length of the barrier. There was a small porch as well, that presently three cloaked figures were huddled under while they waited for their knocks against the door to be answered.

" Malfoy can't live here." Ron mumbled narrowing his gaze about the flat while the sounds of the rain crashed around them.

" There is nothing wrong with it Ronald." Hermione removed her hood, and tried her best to calm the curls that were now doing all they could to form the birds nest she was always apt to taming a top her head.

" You think he has house elves running about?" This was Harry now as he resorted to banging his left fist against the door once again. He quirked a knowing smile at Hermione when she rolled her eyes.

" I think even Malfoy knows better than to have the poor creatures doting on him when his wife barely had a clue as to what is really going on."

" I'm willing to bet on Hugo's future as a Quidditch captain that he's only told her portions of the truth." Ron poked his head around his own wife, searching through one of the larger sized windows hoping or maybe not hoping to see life behind them. " Knowing Malfoy he probably obliverated her mind by now anyhow."

" Harry are you sure this is the right address?"

Hermione's question was interrupted on cue. Squealing followed by howling, than followed by a blood curling scream had all three of them reaching for their wands simutaneously. The sight of a blond head behind the doors windows mecanically had them all gripping their wands even tighter, but when the door opened and revealed a very distressed Malfoy with a lump of a screaming baby over his shoulder, all three of the Golden Trio could do little but to fall against each other in relief as well in amusement.

" Merlin Malfoy what are you doing to her?" Hermione grinned at the baby hanging over her fathers shoulder like a dish towel.

Draco scowled at the three Griffindors stooped under the white light of his porch. " I'm not doing anything to her..." Her cocked a look at Hermione's hair and smirked before removing his daughter from his shoulder to cradle in one arm. " The bloody knocking woke her up."

Harry grinned inwardly, than it faded when the fresh sounds of the disturbed child began to vibrate through the neighborhood once more.

" Christ, get inside would you." Malfoy didn't wait for his guests to hesitate upon entrance to his house. He expected it, but at the moment, watching them squirm under the idea of stepping foot inside another Malfoy residence no matter how small or large was the very last thing he wanted to see right now. What he wanted to see more than anything was his wife come through the doors. How long had she been gone now? He threw a glance at the neon green numbers displayed on the stove. Only an hour? Lyra screamed again, almost as if she knew her father was distracted from her.

" Oh lyra, come on..." He tried to hush her at the same time trying to ignore the newcomers now staring at him with wide eyes as he comforted his daughter to his best ability. "Sit down already...and stop gawking Granger."

" I'm not gawking."

Lyra screamed again, and Draco as well as Harry and Ron all jumped a little at the sound. Hermione rolled her eyes again. " Where's Nora?"

" Out." Draco spoke over the noise that his very small daughter was once again expelling from her even smaller lungs. " To her work."

" And you just let her go by herself?" Harry, along with Ron had taken to the farthest corner of the small kitchen and they both cringed with each breath that Lyra took.

Draco shot a foul look at Harry. " She's protected Potter. And I offered to go with her, but the damn woman wouldn't allow it. Said she was fine to go to her work and tell them about the leave of absence that I was making her take herself..." He scowled again, but it his mouth softened when Lyra turned into his chest, her screaming dipping into light whimpers. " I don't think Avedra would attack her without me being there anyway. That's the point isn't it? Get to me through them?"

Hermione took to a chair at the square table. Ron and Harry decided it was safe to do the same. Draco wasn't ready for that though. Sitting at the same table with these three people who used to be his enemies, still seemed odd to him. Draco had never once sat at the same table with any of them. It seemed so civil to him. He looked from his daughter, who had found her fingers and thumb with her little mouth, than to the witch and wizards staring back at him in a weird kind of awe. Too civil, he decided.

" I think you're right." Hermione began, still throwing glances at the baby nestled in her fathers arms. " I think that Avedra has been planning this for far to long to just do something so normal, like kidnap Nora when no one was looking. She's more like her mother in that way."

" She wants an audience." Draco took to leaning against the counter. " Sounds like my Aunt."

" I think she may be worse that Bellatrix." Harry began. Draco noticed his tone darken as well as his features when he spoke. At least that was one thing he and the scarhead had in common. " The order passed down more information on your cousin in the last few weeks. Six years ago, Avedra surfaced with the same old beliefs and prejudices. It caused her and the deatheaters she claimed as her own, to start hacking at the wizarding world again. It started off small, as it did when Voldermort was trying to gain power, but she's quicker, Avedra I mean."

" You wouldn't know about the murders and the disasters that the order and the ministry has been investigating in this world, because you removed yourself from the wizarding world years ago, but it's the same as it was before." Ron shrugged. " Hell, maybe worse. At least the murders are worse...bloody."

" And you're sure Avedra is behind it?"

" Avedra. Goyle. Crabbe." Hermione looked to her husband as he named off the deatheaters that still sent shivers through her body. " Most recently, Ebon Greyback...who the Aurors, the order and the ministry had no idea even existed."

" Explains the gore of the murders though." Harry cut in, shaking his head as he did. "Anyway, it's all irrelevant right now."

Draco nodded in agreement. " I just want them safe." He blinked down at Lyra again. Her eyes, his eyes, moved under her closed lids. Draco wondered if she was dreaming, so safe and secure, where nothing and no one could lay a finger on her. " I just want them where Avedra can't touch them."

Harry looked to Ron who looked to Hermione. " How much does Nora know Malfoy?"

Draco flicked his gaze to the three occupants almost sitting closer to one another when his eyes dragged across their unsure expressions. His eyes came to a halt on Ron, who met his solid stare blindly.

" About what Weasel?"

" You know damn well what Malfoy." Ron breathed the words like fire. " Does she know you used to be one of them?"

" Let's not start." Hermione issued the statment like a solid brick wall between both of the men.

" No!" Ron's voice peeked with frustration, as the muscles in his forearms tingled and tensed. " Aside from your wife and your child staying safe from your demented cousin and her band of vicious killers, I, as well as Harry, have a responsibility to our families as well."

Harry nodded his agreement. Hermione sat a little straighter now, leaning towards her husband as he demanded his answers from Draco, who by all means, did not look like he was willing to meet Ron's questions with any kind of answer. If anything, he looked more ready to throw all three of them out into the streest where Hermione was still so sure, Draco Malfoy believed his unwelcome guests deserved to be.

A silence vibrated about the kitchen and the four adults, until Draco shocked them all, by shrugging, rolling his head about on his neck like the stress was too much for him to handle anymore, and nodded what could only be taken as his agreement.

" Nora is aware of my deatheater status." Draco spoke gruffly, hoping to hide the tension in his voice. " She's also aware of the part I took in the war." He lifted his gaze to meet Harry's solemn one. " Obviously, she knows that Scorpius is a wizard and that I am as well. She's taken my world, now our sons world, and what will be Lyra's world one day, with an acceptence that I somehow knew she would, but it still doesn't mean that she needs to know everything."

Harry ignored Ron's scoff, of _I told you so. _

"And everything is what?" Hermione interjected before Ron could voice his scoff.

" You know what Granger." Draco almost spit. The tension in his body suddenly moved to his head where he was sure it would split his skull in two. " About her kind! What she is! What my son is!"

" A muggelborn." Harry spoke the word for the blond wizard.

" Yes." Draco realized he was gripping the blanket wrapped about his daughter a little too tightly. His quick movement to settle her back into the playpen he himself had insisted on having in the living room, made all three giffindors jump slightly where they sat. To Draco, that was the highlight of this visit.

" Who would have thought." Ron lightly chuckled. Hermione frowned her dissaproval with her husband. " No really? Who would have thought? I think it would have been more natural to see Voldemort himself marry a muggle and raise her muggleborn son."

" Shove it Weasel." Draco shot back over the amusement that seemed to be tickling Ron a little too much for his liking.

Ron held up his hands in defense, before he smotheres another laugh.

" Look..." Harry began, cutting in before a fist plowed his best friend square in the jaw. " Nora's agreed to come with us than?"

" Agreed wouldn't be the word to use, but shes going." Draco saddled against the counter blinking again at the time.

" And you as well?" Hermione asked

" And me as well."

Harry looked to Hermione. They both looked unconvinced.

Draco huffed a sigh at the uncertainty that washed between Potter and Granger. " I'm coming. I'm in enough trouble with Nora as it is."

" Well than..." Ron whistled through his teeth. " I guessed you'll be wanting more than a roof over your head eh Malfoy?"

" Co-operation would be nice Weasley." He really wanted to smash the Weasels face in. With every passing second it was getting harder to control his now clentched fists.

" Agreed." Harry spoke over Ron's sputtering. " I don't think theres a need to bring anymore grief to an already hazy situation. We needed to know what you know Malfoy, so we know what we are dealing with and how to deal with it when the time came."

At that moment, Draco knew as to why the famous Potter and his band of merry griffindors were exactly helping him. He knew that as the boy who lived it had been Harry Potters chosen path, his fate, to do what had to be done when it came to Voldemort. That was then. This was now. There was no chosen one to kill his cousin. He knew that Potter, Weasley and Granger were doing this because it was their jobs. He knew that beyond that, and more importantly, they were doing this to save their own children from the trials and the greif that they themselves had to fight through when they were younger. Draco knew that feeling. He sided with his counterparts fiercly on that hand. He didnt want Scorpius or Lyra to ever deal with the ignorance and the loss that he had been dealt his whole life.

He wanted better for his children.

Lights brandished in through the living room windows and flickered across the red paint of the kitchens walls before Draco gave Harry his chance to measure out his promise to keep his mouth closed about Dracos sketchy past and prejudices.

" Nora." Draco left them where they sat, and headed to the front door where he met his wife.

Nora watched Draco as he came towards her. His hands were stuffed deep into his jeans pockets, a burping cloth was still over his left shoulder and his face was a rack of relief and despair at the sight of her.

" Draco." Was all she managed to speak before his mouth had molded against her lips, and her back was up against the door she had just come through. The air she had been breathing rushed from her lungs as her husband brandished her with his greedy mouth, and gripped her tightly in a pair of arms Nora was sure would never let her go.

It was than, as his lips moved against her own, as he dipped his head to rest against her neck and breath her in, that Nora realized they were there to get her and Lyra. She sensed it through Draco, before she sensed that someone more than her family was somewhere in her home.

" As long as you're with us Draco." She found enough air to form her voice, which rushed out of her in a slight whisper. "As long as you're with me."

Draco gritted his teeth when she spoke. His lips stayed close to where he could feel her pulse throbbing under the skin of her neck. It skittered hard when he dragged her deeper into his embrace.

" I'm always with you Nora."

" Nora!"

Draco watched than as Hermione embraced his wife away from him. He watched Nora walk with Hermione into the living room, where Potter and Weasel met them both as the witch and muggle crooned over his sleeping daughter. He watched Nora smile and nod and reach a soft hand to sweep their daughters cheek. Chatter and talk folded over into the room before him.

It was all natural.

And it gave him a little peace to know that when he wasn't with them, when his wife and child stepped into the fireplace and he didn't follow, at least they would have this.

Draco didn't know what was going to happen. He didn't know where he was going. He didn't know where to look for his cousin or what he was going to do when he found the bitch and his wand was pressing into the skin of her neck.

All he knew was that whatever it took, his family would be safe.

He wouldn't let her touch them

Whatever it took.

**Update? Hmmmm. Why not.**

**Sorry to anyone whose been actually following this story. I have no excuse because I love this story and have thought about it everyday I was away from it! Like I said, freaken Twilight series will be the death of me! I'm reading the third book now, and it's kind of taken me away from life in general.**

**But I'm back! And I plan to finish this story before the summer is over. I've managed to sort out a lot of what I want to happen with Draco and Nora and everyone else, so please be patient with me!**

**I'm not sure how the next chapter will play out, but I want to bring the kids back for another chapter, because they have grown on me.**

**Draco in all sincerity has decided to go it alone...dum dum dum**

**Read and Review **


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Chapter Ten**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

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Chaous cluthched the burrow before the sun had a chance to climb the horizon. There was no familiar smell of breakfast lingering in the air. There was no bustle to escape to work and actually be on time. There was no laughter. There was no scolding.

A babies cries were met with the comfort of a stranger, because her mother was unable to pull herself away from the empty fireplace standing before her rigid body. Hermione sat next to Nora, wrapping a heavy quilt around her unmoving frame, stealing glances at her expressionless face, hoping against hope that Nora would give into the sleep that was threatening to take her away from the reality before them all.

" Nora." Hermione breathed her friends name against her better judgment, but the woman next to her only hummed her reply. " You need to sleep Nora."

She shook her head in response, and the movement had the quilt slipping from her shoulders. Hermione once again replaced the material about her. She felt Molly Weasley behind them now, the soft sounds of a baby now sleeping against her mother in laws shoulder bringing a kind of calmness to the room.

" I'm getting you some tea."

" Coffee please." Was all Nora could manage to say against a throat that felt like sandpaper.

Hermione nodded and followed Molly into the kitchen quietly. Arthur had brought a crib down from the attic upon seeing Lyra and now Molly went about settling the smallest Malfoy into it before giving breakfast another try.

" And he gave no sign than?"

" None." Hermione glanced out the window, hoping to see Ron making his way over the hill. " He told us he was coming with Nora and the baby." She looked at the clock sitting on the corner countertop of the kitchen. It still told her that her husband was at work. Hands had been added over the years, just as Hermione had always assumed Molly and Arthur would. Harry was there now as well as she was, his hand was moving about rapidly which meant he was on the move, probably trying his best to track down Malfoy. Than there was the children of course, all hands with the exception of Lily and Hugo whose hands were pointed towards home, were pointing at school.

" And what does he propose to do?" Molly bustled about the kitchen, casting silencing spells when the need be, in order to not disturb Lyra. "Go about this himself?! I know first hand what that womens mother was like, and I can only go on the daily prophet and their headlines over those poor people and those grisly murders to guess her daughter is little less charming."

" We're not sure what Malfoy is thinking."

Molly made a noise close to a _hmph. _" Well, I wonder if he is thinking at all about how distraught his wife is at the moment, not to mention his sweet baby, or Scorpius who I'm sure soon enough will be hearing about his fathers dissapearence."

" I think he's thinking about how best to deal with Avedra before she has another attempt at his family." Hermione watched the coffee perk. "And as far as we know, Malfoy hasn't dissapeared. He just didn't come when he said he would."

" You don't suppose this Avedra got to him before he had a chance to follow do you?"

Hermione shook her head. The thought had crossed her mind, as well as Harry's and Ron's, but after hearing nothing from the Order or the Ministry itself in regards to dark magic or happenings they all agreed that Malfoy had taken things into his own hands.

" I honestly don't know what to think." Her voice stayed low as she spoke. " This is the same story, just with different characters. Avedra wants her blood line clean. If she is anything like Bellatrix, she won't stop, even if she did have Malfoy locked up somewhere. This is barely to do with him. This even has little to do with Nora and Scorpius really."

" The baby." Molly sucked in a breath, and shook her head once and than twice casting nervous glances towards a sleeping Lyra.

" To Avedra, Lyra is the final straw. Draco married a muggle, which in any case, was a stab in the heart for her. Than he fathered a muggleborn." Hermione slipped a sauntering look at the baby sleeping soundly as well. " But Lyra is actually Draco's blood, and she's not pure."

" So what is she going to do?! Kill the child?!" Molly was squeezing a dishcloth between both her hands, knotting and unknotting the material, turning her skin white as snow against her knuckles.

" Of course not!" Hermione ushered her mother in law to one of the many chairs around the massive kitchen table. " I know that Harry and Ron as well as myself, and not to mention her mother and father, will not let that even come close to happening."

Molly nodded, and Hermione wondered if she might just start to weep.

" I'm going to bring her some coffee and see if I can get her to try and eat something." Hermione wrapped her hands around the steaming bitter liquid sloshing about in a massive orange mug. Molly waved her off with the dishcloth now escaped from the deathgrip it had just been in, and continued to try and muster up something for the company she knew was soon to sit about her table.

" Here." Hermione settled herself next to Nora once more. Nora blinked once than twice as a hot mug of coffee was placed in her frigidly cold hands.

" Thank you." Her voice really did sound like death itself.

" You should eat."

" I need to know where he is Hermione."

Hermione watched a fleck of what seemed like life stir underneath the tense pale skin on Nora's face. " Harry and Ron are sure to have news."

Nora shook her head causing stands of her hair to fall across her cheeks. " Why would he do this?"

For a moment, Hermione said nothing. Nora tried to drink from the mug, but the bitter liquid burned her throat and sent a fresh ache through her already pained body.

" How much did Draco tell you about his time at Hogwarts Nora?"

A choke of gagged laughter suddenly rolled out of Nora before she met Hermione with a pair of amused eyes. " He told me he was a bully."

Hermione joined her laughter than, before rolling her own eyes. " Oh yes, Malfoy was a kind of bully."

" It's not my place of course and Draco of all people, would be the first to say it and tell me to but the hell out, but I think you might understand more about why he's done this if you know a little more about who we knew, when me and Ron and Harry were in school with him."

" Am I going to like it?"

" Maybe not." Hermione grinned. " But it might just make you laugh. For example, did Draco ever tell you about the time he was transformed into a wicked little ferret?"

In the hour that followed Hermione managed to expose Draco as much as she was allowed to without actually turning him over to his muggle wife entirely. Nora asked questions about his parents, and Hermione explained to her best ability. They talked about his friends/bodyguards and how in the end Draco had watched one of them burn up in the room of requirement.As they talked, Hermione watched realization brighten in Nora's eyes. The coffee had gone cold by the time Hermione had finished outing Draco to his wife, but when she looked at Nora, and seen some kind of calmness there, replacing the mask of confusion and wariness, she was more than happy she had done it.

" He blamed himself." Nora spoke softly, her eyes now transfixed on the fireplace harsher than before.

" I think so." Hermione watched her features twist and contort with a slew of different emotions. " I think that he still blames himself. He blames himself for not being able to help his parents when they were sinking so deep into their own despair. I think that he blames himself for not being able to save Goyle, not being able to stand up to Voldemort and refuse his part in the war that took so many lives."

" And this is his way of making it right?"

" Maybe. You never know with Malfoy..." Hermione looked toward the fireplace as well, hoping than that her husband and Harry would be smart enough to apparate instead of using the flew network. " But one thing I do know is that he's not here right now, because he feels responsible to you and his children. He's not about to let his cousin take any of you away from him Nora. That's why he's not here. Avedra is going to try and hurt you. She's going to try and hurt your children and she's going to try and clean up what she thinks Draco has made dirty."

" Lyra." Panic resumed in Nora's voice, and her fingers knotted into one another.

Hermione's hands immediatley found her shaking hand with her own. " That's why he's not here Nora."

Nora forced the bile that was rising in her throat back as she fought against all urges that involved taking Lyra and Scorpius and leaving the country forever.

" He's going to kill her."

" We don't know what Malfoy is going to do."

" No." Nora's head shook almost by itself. Her eyes fixed heavier on the fireplace now, and for some reason, the last person she wanted to see was Draco. " He is."

Hermione watched Nora slip to her feet, adjusting her jeans as she did, than pulling her hair off of a face that looked like stone as she spoke. " He's going to kill her."

Draco's words echoed deeply in her head and the thought pitted in her stomach as she realized now how serious he was.

" How do you know?"

Nora focused her attention once more on the empty black fireplace.

_I'll kill you myself before I let her._

Why his wand all of a sudden felt foreign in his hand he had no idea. He twisted the wood between his thumb and forefinger than blanced it between each individual finger before letting his eyes slip over the piece of magic he had called his own for the last fifteen years. This wand had never felt entirely the same as the one he had lost in the war, but he had learned it's strengths and it weaknesses as he was sure it had learned his. Up until that very moment Draco had never felt so disconnected from the magic that his wand usually gave him.

He twisted the wood again in the palm of his hand before replacing it back into the folds of his cloak, sneering at anyone who looked at him as he moved under the black material.

And people were staring. Of course they were staring. They knew who was hidden behind the less than fine and expensive material he had draped himself in. Draco told himself with a silent smirk that was the reason they were baffled by him. No Malfoy in his or her right mind would wear something so off the rack. His grin pressed harder at the corners of his mouth as he walked against the crowds circulating the shops of Diagon Alley.

Draco knew where he was going. He knew what he was doing although he was more than postive certain individuals would disagree with that sentiment. He tried to block those certain indivuals from his train of thought as he ducked himself between a narrow alley way that he was all too familiar with. It was the same. Like fingers tracing across his skin, Draco felt a chill expand the length of his spine. He noted the absence of any wizard or witch as he scanned what was left of Knockturn Alley.

Things had changed when Voldemort finally took his last breath. The world Draco had known, had always known, suddenly was no more. Everything and anything that the dark lord had touched and made his, crumbled and became obsolite to the present wizarding world. Knockturn Alley was no different. To the eyes of those who still sought it out sometimes, mainly out of their own stupid curiosity, there was no trace of what had always been deemed as dark. Most of the shops had been closed by order of the Ministry and as far as the minister was concerned, things had stayed quiet there.

Draco walked closer to the left wall, brushing his hands across the rock of a familiar crumbled building as he did. Things were far from quiet. The Ministry just wasn't looking in the most obvious places. His mouth quirked again. Voldemort still played a part in how the Order and the Ministry did their jobs. The dark lord made them paranoid and skeptical even after his death, so much so, the obvious was no where on their radars.

Draco barely noticed the sneer that had crept across his lips at the thought.

The building took a soft turn, and the familiarity of the shop scraped against his open palm. His fingers twitched against the brick.

After the war, this had been his refuge, his and whomever else had managed to slip through the cracks of punishment. Draco forced his hand a little harder and heard the whoosh of uncirculated air make its escape from the now visible door as it opened to let him inside the darkened room he was once so apt to. He and Goyle had spent the better part, or maybe the worst part of their lives inside this pub. He glanced about the room, letting his eyes adjust to the ever growing darkness as night replaced the evening. His footsteps echoed and bounced off the emptiness as he found his way about the empty bottles scattered across the cement floor, dodging bar stools and splintered pieces of wood that had once been the chairs he sat on. Across the pub, he caught his reflection out of the corner of his eye. His stomach turned before he let himself take in his entire reflection.

His skin was white against his cloak, against the blackness that looked so ready to swallow him. His eyes looked bright...ready...the silver under a pair of drawn eyebrows, the only color trying to penetrate the bleakness of his situation. Draco didn't know why he did it, he didn't know why after 15 years of silence, he suddenly felt the itch on his skin. His right hand found his left under the folds of material, and under the watchful eye of the mirror and his own very stoic reflection, his marked forearm became visible.

" It'll never leave you."

Draco's wand was in his hand before the voice that had found him had a chance to laugh.

Goyle stood against the door Draco himself had just entered, his own wand in hand, his massive arms folded across his even more massive chest. His head was low, sunken into his shoulders as if his neck was unable to support the gerth and brawn perched atop of it, but his eyes still seemed catlike, followling each of Draco's slow movements as he moved forward on to his old friend.

" Where is she."

" You must mean Avedra." Goyle chuckled before flashing a perfected grin that Draco was all too familiar with. " I know you're not looking for Deidra."

" Avedra first." He was growling, he could feel the vibration deep in the core of his throat as he closed in on Goyle with each step. " I haven't forgotten about Deidra. I haven't forgotten about any of you."

Goyle chuckled again, than laughed, slapping his free hand against his trunk like leg, before swinging around, out of Draco's reach. " Pathetic girl...what she would have given to hear you say that sentence!"

" Where is Avedra, Goyle?!"

Draco knew that the bulk of man to the left of him now, twirling his wand so absently in his bear paw of a hand was not ready to pass Draco over to his cousin. Not yet. His eyes stayed focused on Draco as he walked the length of the pub, than turned and walked back toward the blond wizard.

" Hows the family Draco?" Goyle's easy smile turned sour than. " I heard your boy got sorted into Slytherin? Now how did that happen? Unless that hot little piece of meat you call a wife attracted not just one wizard, but two...And the baby...little Lyra Blare is it?"

Vomit threatened to spill over the thirst for blood now ripping at Draco's entire frame.

" So, we have a mudblood with the name Malfoy attached to him...and as of two weeks ago, we have the real thing! A little witch with the Malfoy name...a halfblood!! I mean Draco...really...are you as shocked as the rest of us?!" Goyle snapped his head toward Draco now, taking in the rage now quaking through his former comrad. " Are you as disgusted as the rest of us?"

Goyle felt the tip of the wand at his neck before he even realized Draco closed the distance between them.

" I never asked for your fucking input Goyle!" He spat, driving the sharp end of his wand harder into the hard reptile like skin of the deatheaters neck. " You speak a word about my family...about my children again, I will do more than just cast a spell and suck the life from you. I'll rip your fucking throat out and keep you alive long enough so you can watch me shove it back in place!"

" Still so touchy." Goyle grunted under the grip Draco had him in and tried to let his guarantee of a threat slip away from his mind. "Touchy for a reason I suppose...maybe I hit the nail on the head eh Malfoy?"

" Shut the fuck up!" Draco slammed him against the wall hard. Blood trickled down Goyles neck now, staining the tip of his wand. " She wants me!? I'm here! So do the job I'm sure you were sent to do and bring me to her!"

Goyle sneered. " Avedra will be more than happy at how cooperative you've been."

A flick of his wrist and he could end the life at the end of his wand. One movement and he could vanquish at least one threat in his life and walk away with no remorse. His fingers tightened around the smooth wood, before he forced himself to drop his arm back to his side and take a step back from the mess of blood he wanted to make.

" She's taken up residence at the manor." Goyle pressed his hand against the visible hole that Draco had indented, squeezing fresh blood from the wound. He scowled at his crimson colored hand before mumbling a temporary healing spell. " I'm to bring you."

Draco turned on his heel, ignoring Goyle's rising voice of demand as he did. " Did you hear me Malfoy!? I'm to bring you!! Avedra wants it that way!!"

In one hard swing, Draco turned, his hand fisted. His eyes blazed with a madness that was only fit for the insane as he watched his hand connect with the hard stone that was Goyle's jaw. A crack sounded through the desolate room. A resounding whoosh of breath left Goyle's deflated lungs before he sank to his knees and fell to the floor with a thud at Draco's feet.

" I don't give a fuck what Avedra wants!" He hissed between clentched teeth, before turning away from the body he was sure could no longer hear him. His eyes cast about the room one last time. He felt his stomach roll with sickness when he thought of going back there, back to where he had always felt his most vulnerable. She knew what she was doing, his dear fucking cousin. She knew where to get him, surrounded by his past, surrounded by what he had been and what he was so apt to flee to.

Surrounded by what he was most scared of in his life.

His past.

It was always there...waiting to claim him one more time.

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**I'm trying to keep it up! I need some encouragement here folks!**

**Breeva!**


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Chapter Ten**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

_Authors Note: So, just a thought...a thought that I think about and ponder day in and day out! Who thinks that the preview for __**Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince **__is going be shown before __**The Dark Knight**__!! I need imput people! I've heard too many rumors in the past few months and have gone to too many craptacular movies in order to see maybe 50 seconds of what we should expect November.21st. So, if anyone knows anything please leave me a post...oh, you could also __**REVEIW**__ if you like!_

_Oh also, another rumor that I pray is __**not**__ true! The __**Sectumsempra**_ _scene with Harry and Draco is apparently going to be cut!! Because of the PG-13 rating?! Any truth?! I hope not! I already know that Moaning Myrtle is not going to be in this film...which leads me to believe that this scene as well will be dropped!! Post!!_

The pictures, his relatives had come back to play. Draco could hear them even before he threw open the massive double doors to his childhood home. He had never heard them like this before. A chill caught him hard upon entering the foyer, but he let it slide off of his cold skin like melting ice as he once again let his adjust to what had been awaiting him for fifteen years.

" The master of the manor is no more!!" A portrait of a more than slender woman, with a flashing set of emerald green eyes sneered at him from her perch against a wall decaying with mold and grime. Her mouth was wide, her snow white teeth gritted together even as she spat at the man who was her nephew. " Dirty blood! Dirty blood! I can smell them off of you!!" Her eyes were wild as she snapped and growled over the elegance that exuded from the gold on her fingers and the patterned silk that draped her body. " The mistress will smell them off you! Smell them and hunt them!!"

" Stupefy." Draco flicked his wrist and wand toward the woman, saying the spell with little to no interest for his great aunt Verona. The woman screamed when the spell collided with her portrait, blasting it from the last of its rotted hinges before it collided with the floor, sending splinters of wood and dust up and about Draco. He stepped over the broken shreds of the picture, and ventured further into the depths of what was once his. Apparently, it was his no longer.

More of his family taunted and shreiked and screeched at him as he walked the long winding hallway that led toward the staircase. More than once did he blast the pictures with spell after spell, sending them into more of a frenzy. Draco wanted it that way though. Avedra would know he was here. She'd be ready.

The thought tightened his grip on his wand and sent his blood skittering through his veins. He wanted a fight.

The air smelt like a rotting corpse. Draco's stomach rolled again and he chose to breath through his mouth as he ascended the stairs. He felt it in the pit of his heart and knew that more than one murder had been commited under this roof. For a fleeting moment, Draco's thoughts hovered toward Deidra. He had heard the past tense, picked up on it straight away when Goyle spoke of her. He knew she was dead...killed for being so quick to act on her jealousy of Nora and her stupidity that Draco remembered Deidra for.

Avedra left no room for mistake...or she wouldn't allow it again.

It was too quiet now. The rooms were smoky black as he slowly walked past each of them. There was no movement behind them, no one hiding in the shadows. Avedra didn't want it that way. She wanted him to find her and enter into her atmosphere, her space, willingly. Draco knew it would be something to use against him in the future, the fact that he came to her, he came alone and he left Potter and his clan out of it all.

No one else was getting hurt. No one. Not even Harry fucking Potter. Draco couldn't allow it. His pride would not recover from another bout of heroism from the boy who lived. Draco shook his head at his denial.

The truth was...if he was to leave his wife, his son and his baby girl in the capable hands of anyone, Potter, as well as Weasley and Granger would have been his choice. It was just Draco's luck that the offer for protection was out there on the table even before he had had a chance to approach the Griffindors on it himself. His pride was spared that day...once again.

The hallway seemed to grow more narrow as he followed his instinct toward what used to be his fathers library. Draco remembered all to well this room. Only when he entered Hogwarts was he allowed to sit amongst the rows upon rows and stacks upon stacks of Lucius's books and parchments. Draco remembered taking advantage to the extreme when it came to this privaledge...that was until he opened one book, one book that had been tainted for centuries by an evil that even Voldemort himself would fall to his knees in fear and awe of. That day Draco had stared the devil himself in the face, and the devil had come in many faces. Muggles. So many of them. It had been a history of war, a history of persecution...a history of bloodthirst and bloodshed that these muggles...these disgusting, shameless, waste of space muggles had done to one another and anyone that they could touch from the very beginning of time itself. The words on the page might as well of been written in blood...and from that day on, with his father and mothers praise, he hated these muggles.

Until the war ended, Draco never saw the similarities he had read seven years before. He saw them now though and he was not willing to let history, muggle history and his worlds history, become the world his children were to grow up in.

That thought, and that thought alone helped him open the door to that very room he had first learned his prejudices in so he could stare another kind of prejudice in the eye, once more time.

Avedra met him with a vacant smile but her eyes were nothing but empty. They screamed triumph and almost cried her malicious plan that Draco was ready for. They followed him as he stormed the room, catching each of his movements like spider waiting patiently to strike at her prey.

" Cousin." Her voice was soft now, calm...but cold. " Have you finally come to visit with me?"

" You can call it that if you like." His voice however was not calm. A growl pitched in his throat as he made the presence of his wand known to her. " I wouldn't."

Avedra sighed, stretching her arms out in front of her, brushing the tips of her long white fingers against the oak desk that sat in the middle of the library. " Well than, that's just too bad...Ebon does make a wonderful cup of tea..." Her sneer snapped into place on her lips as if it was a simple smile to her. "Ironically enough, he does more than just rip the throats out of people that I have no use for...or of course, not to be forgotten, people who just simply bother me...like your lovely muggle wife does."

From the corner of the room the werewolf made a quiet but affirming appearance. He winked at Draco, but not before sniffing the air with a roll of his neck. " She still smells as lovely too."

His hand snapped toward the wolf, wand bent and ready, the words he so longed to say sitting on his tight lips.

" Oh Ebon really." Avedra's laugh, high and curling like freshly cut nails on a chalkboard cracked against the walls and exploded in Draco's ears. " I thought you might have had your fill of the filthy muggle..." She shrugged and almost danced around the desk to where Draco stood, still pointing his wand like a dagger at Ebon. " Guess not."

" It's either me or you Avedra." His mouth formed the words, his voice carried them in his rage. " I didn't come here to strike a deal with you and your fucking monsters."

Ebon barked a common curse at Dracos well planted remark, and took a step toward the waiting wizard. " Monster?! Do you mean that abomination you call your child?!"

Draco saw red.

" Now, now boys." Avedra spoke softly between the wizard and werewolf, but her amusement was apparent. " Draco, darling...I did not call you here to kill you. After all...aside from what you've done so carelessly to your family, past and present, as well as what you have smudged your own self with, I am willing to do just that. I believe you used the phrase strike a deal?"

" I'd rather kill you." The anger stretched and streched inside of his taut body. Every limb, every muscle, every nerve that was alive and could feel the unnatual rage surge through him did.

" Well...if you really would have rathered kill me, I would have expected to die the moment you launched yourself through the doors of this very room." Her eyes were lit now with more than amusement. Avedra knew that the control was with her. It surprised her to see how Draco seemed to pass it over so quickly to her. "But you didn't cousin, so it leads me to believe that you are willing to come to come understanding."

" Understanding?!" Draco spat, forgetting the shaking frame of Ebon Greyback for the moment. He turned on Avedra, his hands begging his brain to just reach out and break her slender neck at the stem. " You want to kill my wife and my children. You've already tried and came very close to succeeding...there is no understanding I can come to grips with." He brandished his wand once more at Avedra, begging her to draw her own wand. Begging her to give him the green light he needed to end her sickened life. "It's me or you Avedra."

Avedra laughed again, the splitting tempo of her manic amusement and obvious insanity hitting it's highest pitch. Than as quickly as it started, it stopped and she had turned on Draco, her eyes sharp and inclined to get what she wanted.

" I won't hurt them Draco."

" Pick up your wand Avedra."

She grinned, her teeth straight, gritted so hard against one another Draco could hear the racking grind sound they were making. " If you will enter into a vow with me, I will enter into one with you. I will vow to never touch them again. I will promise to leave them be...let them live out the rest of their polluted lives in a happy existence with our world, where me as well as my monsters are unable to even get close enough to smell their putrid blood."

" You make it sound so inviting. Pick up your fucking wand Avedra!"

She ignored him, sauntering around the desk she had just vacated and leaning her hip against the corner, continuted the one sided converstion she was having with herself. " I don't think you undersand Draco. I won't be able to kill them once you and I enter into such an agreement. I'll let them live."

" You won't be able to kill them...I know the way your demented mind works Avedra! It's your mothers words...your mothers lies your spewing now." He was losing his control now. The anger swelled and dipped inside of him as minute after minute passed and she was still breathing before him.

" The vow will cover the small print Draco. There will be no loop holes...no way for me to get to them. No way for Ebon here to sink his teeth into your darling wifes flesh." She grinned again. " How dissapointing."

Draco felt his hand falter. Seconds of silence past.

" What do you want..."

" You already know...at least I believe you to know." Her smile dripped with her personal triumph once again. Her eyes watched her cousin, she saw his grip on his wand loosen, and she knew, even before she offered him the choice that Draco would take it. " I will leave your family be...if you join me."

" Join you?!" He spit the bitter words, even though he was far from shocked by her stipulations. " You want me to join you!? And do what?! You'll leave my family alone, but what about the hundreds of other muggleborns?! What do you expect me to do Avedra!? Kill them instead?!"

" Oh Draco. I'm beyond spilling anymore unpure blood. The lines are tainted now...unreversable I suppose one could say. I'm in full understanding of that. As for now they will stay that way. But you dear cousin...I have other means of use for you, and my purpose for wanting you where you think you don't belong are simple."

" He doesn't belong!!" Ebon roared from where he stood, his bones vibrations pulsing through his skin.

Avedra's thin eyebrow, lifted curiously in Draco's direction. Her mouth stayed firm all but the corners of her blood red painted lips. " Of course he belongs. My dear cousin here, no matter what his mistakes, his indiscretions...he is the missing piece...and if you agree Draco...I'll return you to the mess of a puzzle you created when I am finished with you, and you serve no purpose to me any longer."

Draco felt his reserve slipping. His brain snapped like the flash of a camera, images of them, his family sorting their way along the waves and circuits of his electrified mind. They would be safe...she was offering the unbreakable vow. There was no way she, or any of them could get to Nora and his children. No way. They could go home...live their lives in peace. Scorpius would stay at Hogwarts. Lyra would be able to grow up carefree and happy. There would be no danger to them.

"You win either way Draco." Avedra was still talking, her voice so smooth and thoughtful. " I'm offering you your families safety and lives on a platter, and just because you are my family... and you are my blood...my mothers sisters son... in time I will give you back to them. If at that time, that is what you wish."

His mouth was dry, his voice hoarse, and when he spoke, the words tasted like acid on his lips. " What do I have to do."

Avedra's eyes darkened as she reached out to take Draco's willing hand in her own. He cringed as her icy skin slid against his palm. " Tommorow is the beginning of a new day cousin. Tommorow we...you and I will begin to fix what has been broken within the walls of our shattered lineage. What my mother and your father were unable to finish due to pointless loyalty, we will finally be able to put to bed so to speak."

" I won't kill for you Avedra." He felt her nails dig into the rough skin of his fingers, but her face stayed still, quiet, the faintest flicker of a grin dripped from her mouth.

" I'm not asking you to." Her eyes twitched in their round white sockets meeting Draco's narrowed gaze, the silver there, like daggers within a glare. " Helena!"

The witch with thick crimson colored hair coiling down a slender frame draped in a black flowing gown floated into the room, her eyes on no one, the vacant expression all to familiar to Draco. Her hand, dressed in silver knife like rings were the only warmth he could feel pressed against his hand as she folded it like a trap over Avedras and his embrace.

Her wand appeared in her free hand and Draco watched as her eyes adjusted on Avedra.

" Under penalty of death." Avedra spoke sweetly, but it sounded putrid to Draco. " I will not ask you to kill for me. I will leave your family alive. I will not allow or order them murdered." She grinned. " They breath now, the are one with the beats in their chest...but if they go against my orders...they will breath no longer, their hearts will seaze to pound...I promise you cousin. This is my vow to you."

A thin tongue of brilliant red flame appeared from Helena's wand. Draco felt his chest burst with panic, his mind screaming at him to break free, but he stayed motionless, frozen with fear. This was his responsibilty. His duty to what he had made his so many years before. This was his past coming back to eat him alive. The red flame slowly began to wind about his and Avedra's intertwined hands. This was his burden.

" Under penalty of death." It pained him to speak. It was for them...it was for their futures. " I am with you. What you ask of me, I will do what is in my power to serve that purpose. I will not kill for you...but I will help you retrieve what you believe to be yours. I will serve you...until the day you see it fit and return me to my family." His voice dipped low, and his breath hitched, as the final rope of the spell bonded both cousins together again. " This is my vow to you...dearest cousin."

The laughter exploded like a storm and thundered off of the walls surrounding them.

And the tongue of sparkling red flame tightened its deadly grip.

**REVEIW...PLEASE!!**


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Chapter Ten**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

_**Two Weeks Later**_

_After much debate between the Ministry of Magic and the Order of the Phoenix, Minister Lornoganne has decided that in the best interests of the people within the wizarding world as well as the muggle world, that the identities and the origins of the now present band of deatheaters will and must be revealed to the masses of both populations. The minister has already made a more than impromptu visit to the muggle prime minister and at this very present moment, precautions are being taken to protect all communities of muggles within the cities and villages outside of this world. The ministry has been working day and night, casting barriers that they are more than certain will keep the deatheaters and their reign of terror out of the muggle territory. On this end, the Ministry has once more asked the Order, headed by one Harry James Potter, to assist in the capture and trial of each deatheater as they are caught and disposed of. There has been no comment from the Order, or Mr. Potter, regarding the debate and obvious disagreement when it comes to exposing the present threat, but Minister Lornoganne did have this to say regarding this mornings turn of events._

_**" The Order has once again offered their services in order to catch and apprehend the individuals that we now know to be responsible for more than three different attacks within the muggle world, as well as six seperate, senseless murders that have occured within our own world over the last four months. After this morning, yes, me and Mr.Potter do disagree on some topics of conversation, and yes, one being is releasing the identies of the deatheaters we both hope to apprehend before anymore damage is done to our world or what we are both convinced of, the muggle world and it's occupants. I do not deny these claims, but at this time, we are both agreed that out of concern for the wizarding world we have both resigned ourselves to doing what must be done, and what must be done is simple. We will not rest until those involved are caught and brought to justice for their crimes. We will not once more, let these atrocious acts of violence and pointless loss of life deter us from this way of life that we have fought for since and before the fall of Voldemort and his rule. I assure you all and please rest in that, the Ministry and the Order are doing everything in our power and our powers combined to keep you and the ones you love safe and far from harm. Please go about your day to day lives. Please trust in your ministry and know that we are the people looking over your shoulder, just so you do not have to."**_

_The following names presently appear on a list of the wanted suspects in question. Minister Lornoganne and his ministry has blacklisted these persons and has called the parchment simply N.G.D, meaning Next Generation Deatheaters. The wanted have followed in their families footsteps. The names are as followed:_

_**Avedra Lestrange**__; daughter and only child to one Bellatrix Lestrange. Avedra Lestrange is the suspected ring leader and at the moment at the top of the N.G.D most wanted list._

_**Gregory Goyle**__; Son of Gregory Goyle Senior. Lestrange's right hand man._

_**Deidra Crabbe**__; daugher of Vincent Crabbe Senior; sister to the late Vincent Crabbe junior who perished in the final battle at Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry. At this moment, her status is under speculation._

_**Helena Crouch**__; daughter of Barty Crouch junior. Participated in the torture and the permanent incapacitation of Frank and Alice Longbottom, former members of the Order of the Phoenix._

_**Vinley Dolohov**__; son of Antonin Dolohov, the deatheater responisible for the murder of Remus Lupin during the final hours of Voldemorts war._

_**Ebon Greyback**__; son of Fenrir Greyback. Until recently the Ministry as well as the Order were unaware of Ebon Greyback's exsistence. We are unaware if he as well has been refused the title of deatheater as his father was fifteen years before him, but the Daily Prophet has uncovered evidence that he is as well a werewolf._

_**Draco Malfoy; **__Son of the late Lucius Malfoy. Reports indicate that up until recently Draco Malfoy has been unseen and unheard from for six years. The Daily Prophet has now learned that the former and now present deatheater has fathered a son, Michael Scorpius Malfoy ( in attendance at Hogwarts) and a daughter (name unknown). Harry Potter was unavailable for comment when we tried to contact him regarding his former enemies status as well as the whereabouts of this infamous deatheaters family._

_The Daily Prophet will continue to update and report on these events as they unfold. Any information regarding the N.G.D, please contact Jimmery Lolas, Editor in Cheif and visit our offices. _

_We are the number one source of your wonderful wizarding news._

_The fireplace is always open. _

The Ministry was quiet. People had gone home, leaving a trail of their days work still strewn about in their offices and on their desks. Shadows from the moving night outside crept along the whitewashed walls and peirced the calmness that had wrapped the ministry up in not hours before. The breaking news followed by the promise of justice from the minister himself had only plagued the wizarding world for an unimportant minute before things in general slid back into normalcy. They had dealt with this kind before. They had fought the deatheaters and won hadn't they? And now they were expected to be frightened of children draped in black cloaks with a chip on their shoulder? Many of the office clerks and receptionists who worked for Minister Lornoganne and his team had placed bets regarding the first of the N.G.D to be caught, tried and sent to Azkaban prison. They bet on Draco Malfoy being that person. They hoped for it.

The shadows slid into figures now, slipping against the blackness that seemed to follow them wherever they went. It concerned him only. It was too quiet. The rooms that they sculked through seemed to breath as they slid against the backdrop that was the inner sanctum of the Ministry.

" Malfoy."

A gruff voice that Draco now knew all over again, reached out to him from one of the darkest corners of the massive room. Draco held up his hand in order to shut the room and it's unwelcome visitors in it, up.

" Stop being paranoid." A velvet voice dripped around him.

His eyes followed Helena carefully as she swung by him, tendrils of her crimson coils visible under her hood almost lighting the walls around them on fire.

" Stop being stupid." He stepped in front of her before she had time to whip out her wand and crack him with it. Draco's hand wound about her wrist in a death grip, daring her to start something he would be the one to finish. " The vow barely covered me killing you Crouch." Instead of dropping her hand again, he threw it back to her, and sending her another dangerous glare continued on ahead of the three others.

Goyle chuckled from behind his cloak. " He's more like himself when he's threatening murder."

Dolohov watched the blond wizard as he stalked ahead of them. Helena's mouth scowled after Draco, her hand wrapped around her wrist. He grinned along with Goyle. " Everything takes time."

Time. It was something Draco knew they had very little of. He knew the ministry better than any one of them, and he also knew that behind each door, and the door that he had been ordered to get through, there was more than just guards on duty. The ministry was as maze like and interesting as Hogwarts itself. You didn't know what to expect when you walked through a pair of doors. Sometimes, you had no idea if you would walk back out of these doors with all your limbs intact, let alone your heart still beating in your chest.

A deadly image of him holding his still pumping heart in his hand assaulted Draco's already fragile mind. Two weeks. Had it been only two weeks? He felt like he had been with Avedra and her cronies for countless years, each day of that year picking away at him like a crow scowering the remanants of a corpse. He thought about Nora, a vivid memory he kept of her flashing in front of his eyes, before he jammed it back to where it stayed locked up until he was alone in the manor at night. Draco thought about his children whenever he was given a task he wanted to refuse. He thought of Scorpius in Hogwarts, wondered how he was doing, if he was happy. He wondered if he liked Slytherin house, and if his muggleborn status was giving him grief from the other kids. He grinned inwardly. He hoped Scorp tried out for quidditch. And than there was Lyra. It hurt him to think about her growing each day, and he not being able to see it or watch her. He wondered if she was smiling now, or laughing or if her hair was coming in as blond as Nora expected. He wondered if she felt her father wasn't there.

" Here Malfoy." A hiss brought him out of his caving thoughts. His eyes sought out the direction of Goyle, now standing like a tree trunk in front of a massive set of four large black glass doors. The frames were made of gold and engraved along each long piece was the words _**Department of Magical Law Enforcement**_. Helena was already casting against the offices, her first cast failing, her second cast breaking the spell that had been cast to lock up the department for the evening.

The doors creaked open. Cold air rushed past them where they stood, before Draco took the first step into the vacated offices.

" Find them and destroy them." He said, knowing that the three deatheaters were awaiting his command. " Do it here. So they know we were here."

Helena sneered after him. Draco ignored her opposition to him most of the time, knowing full well that she hated him for being appointed head of them all. This time he turned to meet her glower, snapping her head up to meet his deadly silver eyes.

" Get on with it Crouch." He growled through gritted teeth, watching her now as she sulked deeper into the shadows of the office.

Moments later fires were burning in random spots about the room. Draco couldn't count the numbers of them, but as the flames grew stronger and higher the visual of the room came into shape and light. Goyle and Dolohov had taken to emptying stacks and stacks of confidential papers into the barrels of flames they had conjured. Helena was doing as she was told and using her wand to envelope and apparate what she supposed might be crucial information back to the manor where Avedra awaited them. It was surreal to watch. Covering for their parents mistakes, doing what they could to erase the crimes and the acts of violence towards others just so they could say, it didn't happen...or where's the proof? Avedra wanted her mothers name cleaned like an open wound running rampid with infection. Draco watched Goyle heave another full cabinet full or parchment into a bin or almost blue flame. He wondered if it meant as much to them as it did to her.

" Finish up. They'll be here before we have time to apparate."

He left the room before they could ask their questions. He covered the ground he was walking quicker now. The door was in sight , and he flicked his wand toward it slamming them open before he reached the set of perfectly round frames. The silver label that read _**Aurors Office**_ shook dangerously on its perch. Draco scanned this room as well, but in his hurry, charged through the jewel incrusted ledges and towards the massive white golden safe clinging to the middle of the wall before him.

Draco had no time to mess about with spells or incantations. " Confringo!"

His eyes widened when the massive safe blinked like a star exploding in the sky, and one hinge, followed by the second one cracked and moaned as the heavy door braced itself and slowly slid open. Draco couldn't beleive it...but at the same time was far from surprised. The ministry had let their guard down. Years of a quiet exsistence had caused them to become less careful and so much more comfortable. Draco stared at the now broken safe he assumed he would never be able to break open with such a juvenile spell...but he had.

The inside was a long, large hallway, dimmed, but sparkling due to the objects strewn about the place that now reminded him of the _**Department of Mysteries**_. On either end, artifacts were laying on metal slabs. Some were tagged, others were left alone, maybe due to the fact that if touched, you could very well end up on a metal slab similiar to these as well only the tag would be about your big toe. Draco knew what he was looking for. He doubted he would ever really forget what it looked like, seeing how he himself was at the end of it more than one time.

His height bumped the ceiling as he walked about the trays and trays of assorted objects. It was obvious goblins took care of this area of the Aurors work. He couldn't see Ron Weasely in all his height trying to maneveur his way through this mess without busting up everything in the place. He smirked...and than his mouth slid into a deep frown when his eyes bounced off of the artifact he had been sent to retrieve. Long and slender, just as he remembered it. There was no etches from the wars it was involved with, no scratches or chips taken out of the deep cherry wood during its final battle. It was the same as the day it had rolled from his Aunt Bellatrix's cold dead hand.

Draco was hesitant to touch it, but grabbed it anyway and stuffed it deep into his pocket. This is what she wanted. This is what Avedra wanted. It was only small, so very small and insignificant, but it still dragged him that much closer to being back with Nora and their children. It was the first step of many, Draco knew that, but it was still one step.

It was before he jumped out of the safe that he saw it. He didn't believe it at first, thinking that his eyes must just be playing tricks on him. But it was there, standing upright in the farthest corner of the room, leering at him, it's sleek silver head gleaming against the wall. He felt his heart press hard against his ribs. His mind instantly screamed at him to run from it, but he couldn't force his legs to act. Draco watched himself reach out for it, and his hand grasp tightly around the hard black metal of his father's cane. He shivered. His breath caught in his throat. He couldn't leave it. Every faded memory of his father, every seering image of the man who had raised him plucked at his mind as he stood up with the cane in hand, and under a pair of weak legs left the broken safe.

Shouts from the depths of the Ministry brought him shuddering from his thoughts.

" Head them off!"

" Drop the wand Goyle!"

Streams of light, red, green and yellow flew past Draco's vision as he ran toward the mess of Aurors closing in on the three deatheaters he now called comrads. The three deatheaters he had no choice but to protect.

" Deprimo!!" The words left his mouth before they attached to his brain, and seconds later the floor that two unfamiliar aurors stood upon wands at the ready, pointed at Goyle and Helena, imploded and collapsed taking them with it. Draco shot a hostile sneer toward the two dumbfounded deatheaters. " Whatever was left, leave it. I have what we came to get."

More shouting and yelling followed them. He could see the tips of the Aurors wands in illumination, bobbing about the walls, calling out to their fallen team members and hollering at each other the directions they thought the wanted deatheaters had gone in.

" Apparate." Draco demanded of both Dolohov and Helena. " Get back to the manor. Tell Avedra it isn't safe anymore there." He glanced to Goyle, a rising sense of adrenaline he wanted to wash away threatening to boil over inside of him. " We'll take care of this."

Neither witch or wizard argued. The four of them made it to the exit hall of the ministry, where Dolohov instantly apparated in a plume of hazed red smoke. Helena followed, dissapearing through an open fireplace in a blaze of green flames. Draco turned to meet Goyle, wand ready, his eyes only on the large hall, his massive body quaking under his heavy breathing as the shouts and the bobs of white light gained on them.

" How does it feel Malfoy?" He grinned at nothing but the Aurors approach.

Draco felt his heart quicken as the shadows broke against the darkness, taking the forms and figures of the faces he once knew. He never felt his hand tighten around his own wand and draw it toward the uncoming banter that was the Aurors. He did however hold his father cane just as tight, gripping the long hard neck of the object, the silver head of the serpant glinting in the blackness, its pulsing blood red eyes acting as a beacon for his enemies.

A sneer curled on his lips. " Like old times."

Draco was the first to use his wand.

_**Please Review People!! Just a short note would be great!! **_

_**Breeva**_


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Chapter Ten**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

_**Ummmm...review please! Come on! I know you're reading it! lol!**_

He couldn't breath. He could barely move. His muffled cries for help that he managed to produce from his throat were only met with amused laughter. A hand, colder than anything he had ever experienced before in his short life, strained against his neck and closed against the skin there. When he did get his arms free of what was holding him, his struggle was opposed by thick silk robes, protecting his attacker from any harm. His body jerked against the skin made of ice bracing themselves so tightly around his neck. Colors exploded like lightening around him. He tried to yell again but this only forced the body above him to press harder, to clutch at him harder. To try and stop the pulse beating furiously under his skin.

He felt himself grow tired. He felt his hands loosen on the silk now wrapped around his fingers. The colors turned to shades of black and white too quickly. His eyes slid in and out as his pulse skipped and slowed.

The dark shadow above him smiled on serenley.

Scorpius slipped away.

* * *

"Fiendfyre!!"

Screams and shouting followed by a manical screeching sound lit the ministry. The Aurors slid and collided with and against the floor beneath them, as Draco's conjure of a herendous blazing serpant appeared above him. It's oversized mouth hung wide open flashing it's enormous, dagger like fangs dripping with what could have been venom, but was drops of flame that once met the floor slithered with great speed towards it's victims.

" Aquamenti!"

Draco followed Neville Longbottom's movements as he picked himself from the litter of pathetic witches and wizards pulling themselves from a perfect graveling position, and sent cast after cast toward his very impromptu attack. The snake hissed above Draco, dipping it's wide head low enough toward it's creator, so he could feel it's seering heat penetrate his robes.

" You can't just lop the head off of this one Longbottom." He taunted as Neville rounded both Draco and his monster. " He sees you coming."

" Is this a game to you Malfoy..." Neville watched the snake intently as it snaked the length of it's body around Draco, the heat from the spell causing even more sweat to brim on his skin. " Harry told me not to harm you...I have my orders...but if you want to play, I can accomadate that."

" Threats!!" He would have clapped but he felt no need to release his spell or the cane still clasped in his hand.

" Longbottom! I do beleive you've grown a pair!"

Nevilles face suddenly changed, contorting neither with rage or embarassment that caused the brush of red to pluck at his cheeks.

" Delitrius." A soft, creamy voice with an air of emptiness spoke over the hisses and shouts from the battle surging on between the remaining deatheater and Aurors.

The snake hissed and squeeled and writhed before the spell simply erased it from where it's heated flame of a body lay.

Draco met Luna Lovegood's simple smile with little less than a sneer.

" Have you told him Neville?" Luna nodded toward Draco as she passed him, glancing around her as spells and casts were being thrown one way and back the same way they came. She stopped in front of the dumbfounded Auror, stood on her toes and planted a soft kiss with her dainty pink lips against what Draco now assumed was no longer just her former DA partner, but now her husband. " I assumed not."

" Luna you shouldn't be here." Neville growled, putting a hand square on her arm and pulling her behind him with little effort. That was when Draco noticed the average size bump, hidden under the white flowing blouse that Luna was wearing.

" Oh Neville. You really do worry too much." Luna plucked her wand against his cheek, before assuming her husbands stoic position. " The baby is fine. Restless...I assume he's hungry...much like you...except he enjoys my pudding as you only pretend to eat it." She turned to Draco absently, as if he would know exactly what she was talking about. " I find the poor dog sniffing about it in the garden after my husband pretends to enjoy my desserts."

Draco hadn't heard them chatter back and forth. His eyes stayed quite still on Luna and her swollen belly as she calmly spoke to the rest of the Aurors and even Goyle, mentioning how wonderful it was to see he had reached his full height, confusing him enough to have him drop his wand. The presence Luna exuded stunned Draco, but the way she looked made his head cave and his mind spin with images of the people he had suddenly seemed so far away from. He shook his head harshly, the faces and names almost seeming clouded. Panic gripped him...his heart lurched forward. The wand he held so tightly loosened. The flaming red eyes of the serpant of his fathers cane grew brighter. But his knees still buckled and almost sank to the ground when the faces of his children came out of the fog and resurfaced in his mind.

" No one is going to let a deatheater into Hogwarts Luna."

" A deatheater...I believe he is a father first Neville darling..." Luna swooned softly, placing her free hand against her stomach.

" I believe he was a deatheather before he was a father." Neville growled deep in his throat.

Draco blinked once than twice, before he managed to pick up on the conversation going on before him. " What are you talking about?"

" Malfoy let's go!" Goyle knew he had met his match in the five Aurors now before him, ready to blast him whenever they assumed ready. " Now!"

" There was an attack at Hogwarts Draco." Luna spoke again ignoring the brute of a man now shouting so rudely over her conversation. Her voice as empty as ever, and with her simple eyes now floating about the obvious damage penetrating the walls of the Ministry, never the less she continued on. " We assumed you wouldn't know."

Draco's hands turned into fists. His stomach turned and turned. " Attack."

Neville once more pulled his wife behind him, gaining a roll of those simple blue eyes toward him. " Harry was hoping you would do something soon. There was no other way to contact you but this way..."

His head was shaking without notice. " What are you talking about Longbottom."

" Early this morning...not an hour ago..." He cleared his throat once, confused as to why it seemed so hard to look this man, this deatheater in the eye and tell him the news no parent ever wants to hear spoken. " Someone broke through the barrier around Hogwarts. They made it to the Slytherin dorms..."

He couldn't breath. His eyes gouged out of his head. His throat clamped down hard, so hard a groan of pain blasted from between his clamped lips. This time he did collapse to the ground.

" They must have used a silencing charm." Luna, her voice suddenly change, and seemed so much closer to Draco as his head became heavy and his fingernails dug deep into the ground underneath his broken body. " Albus...Harry's youngest son...he found him not to long after Draco. They rushed him to the infirmary..."

"Is he dead!?" Draco croaked, tears skimming down his face, landing on his stark white hands. His fingers cracked under the wood of the floor, sending sharp raps of pain up and down each arm. " Is he fucking dead Luna?!"

A warm hand skimmed his quaking shoulder. " He's not dead Draco...but it's not looking good."

Air filled his lungs, his head snapped up to meet the eyes of sympathy and curiosity all wrapped up in one expression. Than she smiled. " I'm sure it will do Scorpius some good to see his father though...that is...if you would like to come with us."

" It's a trap Malfoy! You know you can't trust them!"

Draco's hand snapped up before Goyle could blink. " Stupefy!" The spell sent the beast of a man flying back. He smashed like a sack of cement into an open fireplace sending dust and debree everywhere around the stunned wizard.

" You tell her there is nothing...nothing in the small print regarding seeing my children!" Draco roared like an animal breaking out of it's cage as he stumbled to his feet, while Luna placed a hand under his aching arm to help him up. " Go!"

A hesitant second past, a flashing mix of fear and rage assaulting Goyle face before he went up in a wash of emerald green flames.

Draco looked to Luna, still at his side, than to Neville closer than he cared for...but his wand still ready to take the lone deatheater down if the need be. In a moment of maddness or in a moment of clarity, Draco wasn't sure, he passed his wand to Luna, his white flag...at least for the time being.

Luna nodded.

Neville accepted Draco's wand and stowed it securley in his cloak.

Draco followed the remaining Aurors away from the broken ministry and out into a new day that seemed just as hopeless as the night.

* * *

" He did what!!" Avedra screams curled her remaining deatheaters into tight balls against the walls of Lucius Malfoy's study. " What do you mean he went with them?!"

Goyle shuddered against her shrieks he was sure to never get used to. " He said the vow covered nothing about seeing his children."

Avedra's body heaved out thick breaths of air as her skin heated and combed its way up her body. She stared at Goyle, rage blistering in her blacker than black eyes. Her teeth gritted, her fingernails broke through the skin of her palms. " Did he get it."

" Before the ambush..." Helena, from her very tight ball near the fireplace that had always remained unlit no matter the temperature spoke quietly into her chest, where her hand played nervously with her locket. " He told us he had gotten what he came for."

Avedra let her eyes glaze over toward Helena, but her body remained like stone. " Did you see it?"

" No Avedra...I'm sorry."

" Did any of you see it?"

Dolohov squirmed in his oversized wingback chair, making sure to keep his eyes anywhere but Avedra's manic glare.

" No...none of us did...we wouldn't even know what to be looking for..."

Goyle attempted to speak" The only thing we did see him with when he came back from the Auror's offices was what looked like his fathers cane..."

They all watched her coal black eyes snap back to Goyle, the lines from her anger and peeling thirst for blood when it came to her cousin, diminishing like a flower blooming under the heat of the sun.

A grin quirked at her mouth. " Well than I'm sure he has found my mother's wand than...if he has found my Uncle's cane...he was sure to have found her wand."

Glances passed from Goyle to Helena and to Dolohov, now checking the watch on his wrist.

" Do you have somewhere to be Vinley?"

The wizard with the yellow blond hair hanging down his back bound by a braid found Avedra with his uncertain eyes. She stood before him like air, her head cocked slightly toward the watch he was so keen to look at. " Do you have somewhere to be?"

" No Avedra." His eyes dropped.

" Oh yes...you do."

Helena and Goyle both backed away from her as she walked around the chair and stood more pointedly in front of Dolohov.

" I want you to go to Hogwarts. I want you to see if the child is dead yet. Than I want to to remind Draco where he belongs."

He nodded and was instantly on his feet and heading for the door of the study, glad to be given a job that gave him the chance to escape his deranged mistress.

" Bring Greyback with you." Avedra walked back toward the desk she now assumed as her throne. Her hands folded in front of her, her smile seemed to envelope her entire face as Vinley made another attempt as his personal refuge. " Vinley."

" Yes mistress."

" Please remind my dear cousin that even though we cannot touch his family, it doesn't mean that I'm above slaughtering the ones close to them."

* * *

Luna and Neville Longbottom stayed close behind but far enough away from Draco as he made his way like a treachorus storm through the halls of Hogwarts. Children scurried for empty classrooms and corridors as what they assumed and knew to be a deatheater in the flesh, brandish through their school like a wrecking ball out of control.

Draco saw no one as he stormed on, the cane he held clapping off the ground as he all but ran toward the wing that he knew all too well, and the place that at the moment held his son...his strong son...his resilent son. A son that had fallen off of a set of bleachers at his school and practically bounced back unto his feet.

Draco hadn't asked what had happened. He didn't need to know at that moment. All he knew was that he had to be with Scorpius.

Harry heard him coming before he seen what was now Draco Malfoy.

Two weeks before he had watched him rock a lump of his baby daughter in his arms...and now.

His deatheaters robes wound about him as he stalked forward. His hair was longer now, disheveled and hanging crookedly into a pair of panicked eyes. When he got closer, only than did Harry notice the cane clutched tightly in his rigid pale white hand, the same color of the sunken skin on his face.

Albus quickly chose to hide behind his father. His whining about not being able to sit with Scorpius while Rose was, seemed to echo through the empty hallway, that was before Draco began his tirant on his former school.

" Get out of my way Potter!" He was barely on top of Harry before the words spit from his mouth. As his words blasted about him, it seemed Ron was at Harry's side.

" I don't have my wand, but merlin help me if you get in my way I will both put you through the brick wall behind you!"

Albus squeaked. Draco heard it, and his head snapped towards the youngest of the scarhead's boys. " What happened?!"

" I wouldn't bully my son Malfoy." Harry growled, placing a hand toward his shaking child. " I do have my wand and I'm sure I'll be quicker to use it even before you raise one of your bloody fingers to me."

" What happened." Draco sneered again toward Albus, but at the same time taking a step back from the teary eyed boy.

" I woke up Mr. Malfoy and he wouldn't...and usually he's up early and he wakes me up...but he didn't...and he was blue and white...like blotchy and he wouldn't move..." Albus motioned to his neck, his hand trembling as he did. " He had handprints...bruises of them on his neck."

Rage flared up and over again. Someone had layed a hand on his son. His thoughts raced for Avedra, screamed for her. Draco managed a stiff nod, before he turned his attentions back to Harry and Ron. When he did, he noticed Hermione had joined them.

" Draco." She said, her voice shivering as she spoke, her eyes red and puffy. A handful of tissues were clasped in her hand. Hermione looked past him to Luna and Neville, who was now relaying the events at the ministry to Ron who seemed to be getting redder by the second.

" Thank you Luna."

" I need to see him Granger."

" Not now Draco."

He shook his head in amazement. " Don't tell me I can't see my child!!" He went to move around her, his hand bracing against the doors.

" You will...just please Draco...not now!" Ron was next to his wife now, also blocking his way from his son. That's how Draco saw it. That's how it was. They were keeping him from his child. His boy. They were telling him no!

When a fist connected with his face it was enough for him to stumble backwards, and enough force for him to taste blood as it seeped from what he knew was a broken nose. Draco roared and rebounded, his fists clentched and more than ready and willing to except this fight, so when the second fist came at him, ready to plow him in the jaw this time, he caught it...

And caught sight of Nora throwing a third punch, this time plowing him in the stomach.

" You fucking son of a bitch!" The scream exploded off the walls as she came at him again, this time grabbing at his cloak and willing herself to throw him over the flight of winding stairs to her left.

Draco watched arms wound around his wife as he tried to recover. Harry, Ron and Neville were pulling her back, away from him, her mouth still pouring with obsenities he couldn't understand. She was kicking and screaming, tears mixing with the rage exuding from her darker than honey colored eyes.

" I don't want you here!" She screamed again, this time her words making sense. They did their job. Draco managed to stand up, recovering the air he had lost from her more than powerful sock to his stomach. " Leave! Fucking leave!" Her voice cracked, her tears flowed deeper and longer. " Go!"

" I'm not leaving."

" I said go!!" Nora fought hard against the men holding her, and in a last ditch attempt, broke free and collided with her husband again. " Go!" Her voice raised and fell as tears of grief and anger and relief all collided and forced her hands back into fists where she took to pounding them off of Draco's chest. " Fucking leave us alone! Go back to what you came from!"

" Nora."

" No! You lost this right! You gave up this right! He doesn't need you! I don't need you! You're daughter doesn't even know you!!"

" Nora." His voice hitched as his arms folded her quaking frame into him. " I'm sorry."

" Fuck you and you're apologies!" Nora felt him, she felt his arms pull her into his chest, where she could feel his heart beating like hell fire under the immense robes he was wearing. His scent...her husbands scent brandished her senses.

" Fuck you! Fuck you and your lies! Your countless fucking lies!"

He tightened his embrace on her, pulling her deeper into him, even as her fists still collided with his chest, shaking him where he stood. " I'm sorry...I'm sorry."

" You can't say you're sorry." Nora tried to pull away from him, but it was useless. " You can't say sorry...you left...you left us...you left me."

" Please let me see him."

Nora sobbed against his shoulder, her hands now fisting in his robes, clinging to him...not willing to let him go. " He won't wake up."

Pain erupted again through him. A groan escaped his lips once more.

His hands found Nora's face in his agony. " He just won't wake up Draco..."

Tears cracked. Draco's head dropped against her shoulder, and his weight buckled, taking his wife with him as he fell toward the ground once more.

The sorrow that was his life, the mess that was his life finally breaking whatever was left of him.

_**Short I know. I actually cried while writing this. I don't think it's that great or anything, but I was listening to **__**Broken by Lifehouse **__**and it seemed to fit, and made me abnormally emotional.**_

_**Anyway, Look please Review! You can tell me it's shit and I should never write again! It's ok! It's still a review...but please dont, that would be mean...lol..**_

_**I really have no idea how im taking this part of the story. I have no idea. But I am pretty well settled on how this story is going to end. It will be soon I think...we shall see!**_

_**Breeva**_

_**REVIEW DAMN IT!**_


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Chapter Ten**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

_**Authors Note: PLEASE READ AND REVEIW! lol!**_

The room was dark, closed off from the harsh evening sunset doing it's best to drip through the cracks of the greif that surrounded one young boy. Scorpius lay still, unmoving, his face almost the same color as the white cotton pillow beneath his head.

Draco sat near him just as stonelike. He hadn't moved in hours only once to repair the damage done to his nose from Nora's well connected punch. His eyes took in what had been done...what had been bruised and bloodied...what could never be replaced...what could never be undone for the hundreth time that day. He noted the damage, so hard to ignore, the way the fingers had curled about Scorpius's neck, and had pressed so hard, held so tight, so tight, that the fingernails had produced blood and left deep marks after they had drawn away from their victim.

He grimaced, dragging his own hands over his stricken face, hands that might as well of been the pair to strangle the breath from his son.

" Draco."

He blinked, dropping his hands back unto his lap. His eyes focused on Scorpius again, hearing Nora's voice, but unable to look her in the eye in their battered child's presence.

" There's nothing you could have done."

" Don't tell me what you think I want to hear."

" When have I ever done that." It wasn't a question that needed an answer. Draco took his eyes off of Scorpius just to watch Nora walk about the bed her son lay in, and sit opposite Draco. Her hand immediatley found his little white one, embracing it Draco knew, tightly but gently. He watched her thumb absently begin to draw circles against Scorpius's upright palm. " There's nothing any of us could have done."

" I could have been here." He growled low in his throat, his eyes now searching his childs face for some miracle of life. " I thought it was safe."

Nora said nothing. Her eyes were only for Scorpius now, filling with tears every few seconds. " They think it was a woman." She finally spoke, her throat dry and cracked. " The aurors I mean...they searched the room...the state of his dorm..after Albus...found him."

" What makes them think it was a woman." Draco wished he could touch his son, like his wife seemed to do with such ease. His hands stayed solid in his lap even as the thought braced his mind.

Nora shrugged, hey eyes drifting across Scorpius's shadowed face. " They found signs of a struggle. He managed to catch pieces of the clothing she was wearing under his fingernails...and between his fingers. He must have ripped them while fighting her off."

" And they were female robes."

" Apparently." Nora sought out Draco's solemn face, the only flicker of emotion drawing him out of his dead like appearance, his eyes lit with what could only be rage. " I can only trust in what they found. And what Harry and the others tell me...I still know very little about the goings on of this world...let alone the dress code that the monsters in it wear like badges of honor."

His eyes met hers, staring at him blindly, searching his expression with a vigilance he was unfamiliar with when it came to Nora.

" Do you now have a dress code Draco." She eyed his robes, slick and black, odd to her, odd to see on her husband, but somehow fitting also.

" You know what I am Nora." His voice stayed low, the animosity he was fighting, billowing under the surface of his skin. His vision waved in front of him. " This is part of it."

" So it was one of yours who did this to our son?" Her hand dropped away from Scorpius, while her face contorted into a quick anger, a blush or crimson rushing her cheeks.

" It's not possible." Draco felt his mind buzz.

" And than you lie for them?!" She was on her feet now, approaching him once more. He noted her hands, balled into tight fists, ready to strike him if the need arose again.

" I know it wasn't them Nora."

" You're such an incredible liar!" Her voice pitched higher. " Like you were born that way! Like it's genetic, like it's in your blood! Your royal, perfect, unscathed pureblood!!"

His legs worked before his brain. Draco stared down at his wife, her eyes blazing again, daring him to lie to her one more time. Tempting him to do to her what he felt so deep in the bit of his stomach, so tight in his hands...something he had never felt before when it came to Nora. " You know nothing about it!"

" I don't?! Remember darling, you've been gone an awful long time!! People talk when the doors aren't closed and they think no one is listening! You're son..." She shoved a pointed finger at Scorpius. " _My_ son, was the first to know all about your indiscretions! Your thoughts and feelings and beliefs when it comes to muggles! When it comes to muggleborns!"

" You have no idea what my thoughts are!" Draco was seething. He spat through gritted teeth, stared dangerously at the blurred figure standing in such close proximity with him. " You know very little if you've been listening to _them_. As for _your _son, he unfortunately has been the target of childish rumors and gossip, much like I'm afraid, you have been!"

" Tell me than Draco!" Her hand tingled to slap his skin again. " Tell me! Tell me it isn't true! Tell me I don't disgust you! Tell me Lyra doesn't make your skin crawl when you think too hard on what she is! Tell me all about your inbred upbringing, your families prejudice towards what I am, what your son and your daughter are! How do you really feel about the boy you've called a son for the better part of seven years! Tell me!!"

" Nora."

Both heads snapped to meet the intruder to their screaming match now in the doorway. Draco took a step back from Nora, his head clouded once more, his hands shaking, fisting and unfisting as he tried to slow his blood as it pumped like fire through his veins. He closed his eyes tightly, tight enough to see shapes and colors in the blackness before him.

_What was going on? _

Draco heard her before he opened his eyes. A small whimper, followed by an gaggle of noises one could say was inaudible words.

When he let himself, he looked to see Hermione carrying a bundle of his daughter, legs kicking, arms wagging about in the air around her. His heart gave a hard, painful kick to his chest as he watched Lyra beam at the sight of Nora and than her happy, tiny pink mouth, drop at the sight of the stranger in the room.

" I didn't mean to interrupt...she's fussy...maybe hungry. I made Ron check her diaper." Hermione tried to lighten the obvious thickness that lay like cement in the room between Draco and Nora as she passed a wiggly Lyra to her mother. " He of course needed supervision from Harry and Neville. In the end Ginny and Luna managed to save the little thing before any permanent damage could be done."

" Thank you Hermione."

" Are you okay?"

" I'm fine. Do you know when the healer is going to be making another visit to see Scorpius?"

Hermione nodded, eyeing Draco as he took an unsteady step back and sat next to his son's bed again. " Later tonight...not too much longer now...maybe an hour."

Nora nodded. Hermione asked her again if she was fine, is she needed anything, meaning someone to tie up Draco and keep him in the chair for the remainder of his visit, and than left once more.

The room rang quiet again, minus the inquisitive sounds that Lyra squeeked out every few seconds when it came to her father. Draco's mind cleared at these sounds, at the scent of his baby girl filled his nostrils, and the sight of her dark grey oval shaped eyes peirced the distance between them.

" She's bigger."

" She has your eyes." Nora hiked the child a little higher on her hip and moved once again to sit on the opposite side of Scorpius's bed. Draco followed her as she did, Lyra's head cocked to the left at Draco when she finally settle onto her mothers lap. " And as you can see, she's blonde...your kind of blonde, not the normal blonde. Of course she had to be your walking protege."

Draco grinned, his mouth hurting enough, her words tickling him enough to make him suddenly pitch a deep, gutsy, loud...very loud and startling laugh.

Nora jumped. Lyra broke into tears. And Draco laughed, running his hands over his face again as he tried to gain some control of the utter humor he found in one irritated comment from his wife.

" You really have lost your mind." Nora spoke over his laughter, bouncing Lyra up and down hoping to hush the cries her little lungs were working out.

He coudn't help it. Maybe he had lost his mind. He laughed harder at his own suspicions. Nora was staring at him, shaking her head in utter annoyance each time another thrust of maddness left his open mouth. Even Lyra, who had seemingly calmed down, was staring at her father with the same look her mother seemed to project at him.

But than cutting through the laughter, and slicing through the cement thick atmosphere, soft, broken words were spoken that brought the silence crashing down around them one more time.

" What's so funny."

A gasp from one of them, Draco was far from sure, screamed about the room. His eyes shot open. Nora almost lost her grip on Lyra, who now resumed her screeching from her mothers arms.

And Scorpius was looking at both his parents, his eyes groggy from his deep sleep of unconciousness that was still so evident in his placid blue eyes.

" Scorpius!!" Nora cried, shooting up from her chair. Lyra screamed louder at this. Scorpius cringed at his sisters wails of protest. " Jeez mum...can you turn her down?"

In the minutes that followed, many things happened.

Draco watched them all in utter amazement.

Scorpius sat up, slowly, but he did. He hugged his mum, and let her almost unintentionally put him back into a coma with her embraces and kisses that seemed would never run out. Draco ended up with his daughter snug in his arms while this was going on and Lyra made the best of her situation by examining the stranger now holding her. Her cries seased. Her small hands played with his large fingers, and pulled at too long hair she assumed was there for her entertainment.When Draco chuckled at her, she noticed, and he watched her mouth full of gums, smile. The healer arrived promptly at his patients miraculous turn, and examined him, only to find what they all could see, cuts and bruises, but a beating heart and eyes that were open and alert. Draco watched Albus and James Potter followed by maybe a dozen more students, all dressed in different house colors, Slytherin house being one of them, swarm his son's bed with high fives and slaps on the back. He watched with an odd sense of interest and disbelief as Rose Weasely hugged his son a little longer and tighter, before kissing his cheek and than rushing back to her father, who wore the same distracted expression as Draco did.

The most amazing thing though, began and ended with Scorpius. When the streams of students and staff, and healers and clans of Potter and Weasleys finally extracted themselves from the medical ward, leaving the bits and pieces of his family dangerously alone, Scorpius stood up on a pair of weak legs and walked to the corner his father and Lyra had taken up space in while the celebration went on around them. With uncertainty so evident in a pair of eyes Draco had fell in love with so many years before he watched his son, his little boy, stop in front of him and tears drain down his cheeks.

" Do you still want me?"

How it was possible, Draco never new. He would never new. But somehow, he found a way.

With both of his children wrapped up in his arms and pressed so close to his chest and a heart that he now realized beat for them and their mother, he found the words.

" You are my flesh and my blood kid." His mouth pressed hard to his son's headful of mangled hair. " You're mine. Do you hear me. You and your sister and your mum. You're mine. Never think, never...ever think that because of what I used to be, I'll never not want you. I'll always want you. I need you...your what I've always wanted."

Lyra squeeked again, and Draco placed a soft kiss against her plump cheek. Scorpius lifted his head from his fathers shoulder, and Draco wiped at the tears still cascading down his flushed face.

He took in everything about his children than, every feature he could devour, his heart overflowing with an emotion he had never really been intune with until that very moment.

The woman who gave his children to him, watched from a distance, one hand over her mouth, while tears of every kind of emotion spilled as well.

In those moments, those short moments, Draco realized it didn't matter. For the first time in his entire life, his mind was quiet.

It didn't matter. It really didn't matter.

His words were true. They were of his flesh. They were of his blood. They were his. And it didn't matter. His prejudice had broken.

And the glowing ruby red eyes perched upon Lucius's Malfoys cane begged to fix it.

_**So very short I know. I really wanted to do this chapter and I wanted it to be written alone. I wanted nothing to come before it and nothing to follow it because I felt like this chapter had importance to the story and the events that are to come and I wanted to drive this revelation home.**_

_**I guess you can all figure out whats going on with Lucius Malfoy's cane. That kind of just happened. But now that I know where the story is going, and I know the twists and the turns and a few more twists, I really beleieve that everything has meshed incredibley well.**_

_**Thank you Huddelup! You have been my constant throughout this process and your words, no matter how small or large your posts are mean so much to me!**_

_**So please REVIEW!**_

_**Maybe if I stop asking you will! LOL!**_

_**Breeva!**_


	17. Chapter Seventeen

**Chapter Ten**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

" I have to go."

" You don't have to do anything!"

" Damn it Nora...please."

She wouldn't let him go. Not again. Not like this. He couldn't walk away after walking right back in...

" You don't understand."

" Make me understand than!"

The urgency in her voice bled through him. Draco stared down at his wife, her eyes wide with panic, confusion...hurt. " I'm not Scorpius, Draco! You can't say all the right things to me and hope that I won't ask questions!"

The hallway had cleared outside of the medical ward, all the well wishers gone back to their homes or their dorms. Scorpius had fallen asleep hours before. Molly Weasley had come to collect Lyra not to long after, relieved to see that Draco hadn't completely forgotten his duties as a parent, but more than happy to take the sleeping blond baby from the deatheaters arms. When the air around their son had quieted once more, it was than that Draco stood to leave.

Nora's hand wound around his forearm, stopping him from moving farther away from her. " Draco. Please...tell me..."

The words rang like clear bells in his mind, fetching a memory of those words, spoken from that mouth. The plea still sounded the same.

" I entered into an agreement." Draco slid his arm out of her kneeding grip, and replaced it with his hand, pulling her away from the deserted hall, and into another empty room that Draco was sure used to be used as a make out closet for hormonal teenagers, than the medicine cabinet that it was. " I'm surprised Potter hasn't figured it out yet."

Nora let him lead her into the small cupboard, her hand settled in his, willing herself not to hold too tight to his fingers. " What agreement?"

Draco shut the door slightly, making sure he as well as his wife would hear if Scorpius woke up. His eyes found her's in the dim light, searching her soft face, hoping to find an opening in her pain, a crack that would allow him to speak the words without inflicting anymore unnessacary grief upon her.

" An agreement that makes me bound to Avedra." He took a deep breath, leaning his tired body against a stack of unlabled medicines. " It's something like a contract I guess...but instead of signing on the dotted line, we signed using a very old, very poweful spell...it binds me to her...and it binds her to me."

Nora waited for him to elaborate. He didn't. " Get out of it." Panic sliced through her.

" I can't Nora...there's only one way out of it and that's to break the terms of the vow."

" Well break it!" Her hand was gripping his now, tight, hard.

He shook his head, his eyes slanted narrowly on her. " If I break it...I'll die."

Nora's hand dropped away from Draco's, the peircing anger he had seen too many times that day and night, resurfacing on her face again. It caused his body to insinctivly tighten every muscle and limb Draco was sure she could get at if provoked anymore.

" And you entered into this willingly?" Her hands clutched at either side of her hips. " How stupid can one person be?!"

" I'm protecting you the only way I know how Nora."

" Protecting me?! Draco, Harry and Ron offered you help! They offered you protection! And you decided not to take it!"

" I won't have anyone else's lives in danger here Nora. They have families, wives and kids, just like I do. I won't let them put themselves in the way of what is my responsiblity...not again."

Nora growled at this, turning around once on the spot she stood in, shooting him a homicidal glare when she rounded back, and than in her frustration did it again.

" So, what are you going to do than? Take her deranged orders? Live a life of a deatheater when you have a familiy who needs you just as much!?"

" I can't get out of this Nora." His voice quieted as hers rose.

" You can..." Her face dropped into desperation, the lines of anger smoothing quickly from her freckled cheeks. " You can...we'll leave Draco...we'll take Scorpius and Lyra and we'll leave the country...no one will ever be able to find us...find you."

" It's not that easy. You don't understand. The vow physically binds me to her as well. I told Goyle to tell her where I was going, but like the clock at the burrow, Avedra knows where I am day and night." Draco shuddered inwardly at the thought. " She would find us."

" Than kill her."

The words found Draco, but he was unsure if his wife had been the one to speak them. " I can't kill her. She can't kill me. She can't kill you or the kids...that's why I know it wasn't her who did this to Scorp. It's in the vow...if she did, even if she or any of the others attempted it, Avedra as well as that deatheater who tried it, would die instantly...and if I try and leave, if I don't do as she orders me, the same will happen to me..."

Draco's eyes sharpened on Nora. " Please understand Nora."

Silence wound around her. But she met his gaze, and slowly pulled her frantic body towards his. Draco instantly meshed against her, his hands finding her hair, his mouth finding her forehead.

" I'm scared Draco."

He nodded, and smoothed the tips of his fingers across either cheekbone, relishing the touch of her skin, the warmth of her body once more tightened to his. Draco knew he had to leave. He had more to do now than just amble about for Avedra seeking out her cherished family relics, and destroying evidence that proved how malicious and callous his Aunt Bellatrix really was. There was someone else out to hurt his family...someone that couldn't be under Avedra's commands. Maybe Potter and Weasley could prove useful...that is if they didn't throw his butt in Azkaban the minute he made an attempt to leave the grounds of Hogwarts. Too many thoughts suffocated his mind. The feeling of Nora's heart beating like the wings of a bird against his chest, brought him back to why he was doing what he was doing. Why he had sacrificed himself for them. It was so his wife and son and daughter wouldn't have to be scared anymore.

Draco breathed Nora in hard, one more time before extracting her softly from their embrace. His hands stayed firm on her cheeks, now trailing with tears again. He wanted to kiss her, wanted to taste her...his stomach roared with lust at the idea of it, but he braced himself, and skimmed his lips just below her ear and kissed her jaw line with a form of control he could barely contain.

" I'm doing this so you won't have to be."

* * *

" Took you long enough."

The stairs the led away from one of the many entrances to Hogwarts ended with Grayback and Vinley. Draco met the eyes of the manic werewolf first, plucking at his teeth with a dagger like fingernail and staring beyond him as he descended the steps.

" And you didn't even bring a snack...how utterly dissapointing."

Vinley rolled his own eyes, stretching his limbs as he moved away from the wall he had been resting upon. He nodded his head and grinned, toward a watchful Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter before following Draco further away from the castle.

" Don't fuck about dog." Draco snapped, making sure he stayed one stride ahead of the two beasts that lapped at his heels. " What has she got to say."

" Avedra?" Vinley shrugged. " She's pissed...said to tell you to watch your step."

Draco pretended to ignore the last comment, but it still grated through him like nails on a chalkboard. His hand mindlessly found his aunts wand still jammed in the deepest part of his pocket.

" She told me I could nibble on some kiddies...you know...the ones closest to your little mudblood." Ebon shot Vinley a sour look. " But I think Vinley here didn't want to get his hands dirty today."

" I said shut it Greyback."

"Alright, alright...testy this morning eh, Malfoy?"

Draco growled deep in his throat. " What does she have to do with what happened to my son?"

Vinley shrugged again, the question seemingly unimportant. " You know as much as I do. Nothing I would say. You know it's not possible...and it's none of us...I'm not willing to lose my life over some...kid." He swallowed the word _mudblood_, but still earned a staggered glare from the blond wizard. "Speaking of which, Potter let you go without a scratch...job finally gotten to him?"

" He didn't let me go."

" No?"

" No."

There was no questions he was going to answer, not to the likes of the company he was with at that moment. Draco was unwilling to entertain them..any of them. Potter hadn't let him go. He ordered him to go. To go back to Avedra and send warning to her. It wasn't enough to have just Draco. It wasn't even enough to have the monsters that now walked along side him, locked away either. When the time came, and it was coming sooner than later...Potter would put them all where they belonged.

The destruction of the Ministry was simple enough to rebuild and take back what the fire had turned to ash...but what Draco and his deatheaters were doing there somehow had still remained part of the untold story. Draco glanced at his father's cane, now tucked under his cloak as they scowered the grass now turned to gravel in search of an appropriate place to apparate. The Aurors had yet to realize what had been stolen...if they had, Draco was sure, no matter what had happened to Scorp, he would be sitting behind the bars of Azkaban that very second.

The theft of such relics was more than just a misdemeanor crime. The wand...his father's cane, they were under lock and key for a reason...a reason that Draco was yet to realize. The Ministry never took kindly to such criminal behavior. Criminal behavior that they themselves commited when they took what was his families and locked them up in a safe where aurors and goblins had a chance to pick and prod at what used to belong to his lineage.

Draco's vision shook slightly. He immediatley stopped walking, ignoring the banter that was pressing back and forth between Vinley and Greyback. He shook his head sharply again, watching them both out of the corner of his squinted eyes.

They took what was his. What belonged to his father...his mother. His hands fisted, while colors and blurs swam against the two idiots staring at him like he had grown another head out of his neck.

" Malfoy...you alright?"

"...looks green..."

" I'm fine..." His voice morphed against the words, sounding deeper...darker somehow. His head pounded, his temples swelling against the thudding sounds making it hard to hear what the blithering men were uttering.

His blood pumped harder and harder and the thoughts and ideas of what had been taken from him, cohersed together threatening to drag Draco under, fixing it so he could never surface again.

" ...get out of here..."

He watched Vinley tighten his grip on Greyback through hazy eyes, and in a swirl of clouded mist dissapear.

Draco tried to stand straighter, pulling his body up and away from the ground he was more inclined to lie down on.

He felt sick. His stomach lurched, his head spun dangerously and the murderous thoughts raided his fragile mind once more.

Before Draco hit the ground, he as well dissapeared into a tornado of neon green smoke.

* * *

A fight broke through Draco's unconcious state. He was losing. Red gleaming eyes watched his struggle, chuckled at it. He screamed at the watchful eyes, cursed them away. They only pulled him under deeper, harder, suffocating his memories, the faces he loved, the breath from his lungs. There was no one in his hell, only voices fighting for him to stay, and than the voices that demanded obediance...demanding he give up...to do as he was told.

He tried. He fought against the torturous pain making it's way through his weakened body as the fingers of a cold familiarity crept closer to him. But he was weak. He had been weakened. He couldn't fight.

And finally the fingers of his death coiled about him...his mind...his heart...his life...and in a slow, horrifying daze carved it him from his body.

Lucius Malfoy opened his eyes moments later.

_**Hey All. Another chapter done.**_

_**This story is defintley coming to an end now. **_

_**I can promise you closer updates because, **_**BREAKING DAWN**_** is out August.2nd and let's face it, I will be a little too involved in vampire land to write anything. lol!**_

_**Anyway, please review! I'm begging you guys!!**_

_**Also, did everyone see the teaser trailer for the half blood prince?? It was just that...a teaser...black screen...dumbledore talking to harry..and than the date the movie is coming out!! Like we don't know that! Anyway, it was still something...but we need more!!**_

_**REVIEW PPL!**_


	18. Chapter Eighteen

**Chapter Ten**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

_**Thanks to jc52185 for the review! Also, to purplepanties (love the name by the way) for adding me to you favs! It means alot to me and helps me continue on with this process! Please keep reading and reviewing!!**_

The manor was left broken. It took no time for the Aurors and the Order to raid the mansion, taking each and every wall down with them as they plowed through every room, searching for the people who were no longer within them. Avedra had aided Draco's warning, and upon the return of her remaining deatheaters made arrangements to hide within one of the many homes that Goyle had handed down to him after the passing of his father. It was different to be sitting amongst so much wealth, having it surround her like a welcome shelter from the decapitated hole that was once so much more rich and fine than pile of rubble it was now.

Avedra had waited patiently for her cousins return. She knew he was coming back...he really had no other choice in the matter. She grinned to herself, stroking the expensive leather of the chair she sat in, the coolness enveloping her even colder skin. Draco had fallen for her trap. It was done. Finished. At least she supposed it was. The effects of the curse had taken longer with Draco, she expected his indifference to her, as well as his sickening love for his family played a roll in the fight he did put up...but the moment his heavy, lifeless body had come crashing against the grounds of his fathers study, no less at her feet, she knew that her plan had come full circle.

There was nothing left to do but wait now. Wait until the struggle came to an end. The grin flexed against her jaw, her teeth peeking out from behind her crimson lips. He wouldn't win. Draco could never find it within himself to put a finger out of place when it came to Lucius. Had she ever seen him try? Her grin burst forward into a laugh that shook the brilliant room with a tainted quake. Never. Avedra expected this case was no different. The curse had weakened his resolve, let alone taken him surely by surprise when, and she was sure he had, figured out why the cane had bewitched his every sense the moment he held it in his hand.

Her eyes dripped toward her own hand now, where her mothers wand spun effortlessly between her fingers. They blackness watched the sleek piece of charcoal colored wood as it twisted against her palm, before she gripped it in a clentched fist. Her mother had never used the magnificent object the way she should have. Her mother never thought anything through long enough to do what could be done. Her mother might just still be breathing today, if she did, and she took the time to use her strenghts properly, and ignore her weaknesses.

The room breathed silence, even with the fragile mind of Avedra's ticking away in the dim light of the cresting moon. The door to the room that was closed off from the others who may be lurking the halls, opened just as silently.

A man entered, his shadow melting against the walls, his eyes focused on the witch sitting alone near a fireplace that was slowly dying.

Avedra barely noticed when the chair next to her became unoccupied.

" Your mother mumbled as well." He spoke, tearing her from her rampid thoughts. " It was far from indearing."

He watched her eyes search his face frantically. He smirked, his lips twitching due to her panic. " Come now Avedra. When has Draco ever held a docile conversation with you."

Avedra tried to keep her lungs from breaking out in a full on shout of victory. Instead, she forced herself to speak slowly, matter of factly, her eyes taking in the man before her. " Uncle Lucius."

" Not exactly in the flesh child...but never the less." Lucius Malfoy tapped his forehead absently. " That's not what really matters I suppose."

" I can't believe it worked." Her voice breathed out an ultimate awe.

" You are your mothers daughter." Lucius flexed his new limbs, and stretched his longer than usual legs where he sat. " I'm under the impression that Draco is not his fathers son."

" Unfortunatly no...but he's been somewhat co-opertive." The wand she held now tapped lightly against her thigh as her thoughts began to move again ." I use the term as lightly as possible though."

Lucius nodded, dropping the hood of his cloak to run a now gloved hand through the hair that his son had let grow out long and unkept from what he was used to seeing on his only child.

" I'm sure you have summoned me for your reasons Avedra...ones that I'm sure you're craving to tell me..." The eyes of his son, fixed upon the cinders burning themselves out in the pit before both he and his neice. The cane that was once more with it's owner hit the wooden floor hard, before the fire burst to life again, sending sparks and a ferocious heat toward the seated figures. "And I'm sure it has something to do with the abomination he calls his family as well."

Avedra leaned away from the heat. Her face pitched a glower toward the flames. " He doesn't see what he has done."

Lucius removed his glove, the white gold wedding band settled on the hand of his son, earning a disgraceful choke from his throat. " I have to say, I was surprised to find out he had married the muggle."

" So, you can see her than?"

" The wife.." Lucius nodded, twisting the ring around his finger once, than twice. " And the mudblood...and the little halfblood. Would you believe he wants more with this muggle..." He shook his head, staring on at the piece of jewlery that seemed to not want to come off his son's finger. " I can see everything he has seen, everything he has done, everythin he wants to do. His memory will surely help aid what needs to occur."

" So I really do not have to tell you what I want to happen than?"

" No." A final tug on the wedding band, loosend the resolve of the ring, and it slipped off and into Lucius's palm. " It's becoming clear. However stupid my son is for letting himself become so bewitched by such a powerless being is very much beyond my understanding Avedra. However corrupted he was when it came to raising the womans mudblood offspring as his own, is also very well beyond me. The fact that he actually produced a child, a retched half blood to actually take the name Malfoy and do as she pleases with it, makes me more than willing to help you with the weight you have on your shoulders."

Avedra blinked, her eyes rounding with the vision she had branded in her mind. It had never left her. Even when the bond between her and her cousin was finally cemented, it had never left her. " I want them dead."

" As do I..." Lucius rolled the ring between his fore finger and his thumb. " As for the vow that my son entered into?"

" Void." Her mouth quirked again. Her eyes darkened once more.

" And how is that my dear child?"

Avedra rose from her chair, the robes thats she wore swaying around her, brushing against the floor that she floated upon. " Your mind has replaced his body. I have no control over you or what you do with it. The vow was very detailed when it came to mine and Draco's agreement. It covered the basics, which I won't bore you with Uncle...as I know that you can see into his thoughts, past and present." She stood before the largest bay window of the room, letting her gaze clip out towards the lights of the village not to far from her new found residence. Her eyes were lost in the reflection, the only indication Avedra was even before the glass was the white of her skin glowing back at her. " But the fine print didn't cover everything."

Lucius laughed than, loud and curling. Avedra grinned under his approval.

" And what if anything, was left out of this fine print you speak of?"

She turned on her heel than, a hunger building on her pointed features and the left over bits of rage collecting once again behind the storm that was now her narrowed gaze.

" Why would Draco ever agree not to kill what is his."

* * *

" He collapsed before he apparated."

" Well, it was more like the ground didn't have quite enough time to smack him in the face before he dissapeared."

Ron chuckled lightly, before training his attentions back on his son tempting fate with an old broom of his. " Hugo! For merilins sake, be careful!"

The ginger haired boy broke into a gail of laughter before kicking off from the ground lightly, the way both of his parents had instructed him too. Ron watched diligently, praying that Hermione was no where near a window to see her little boy swaying carelessly in the air, while her husband looked on from the porch.

Harry looked to be watching his nephew as well, but his thoughts were distracted as usual. " Is that even possible?"

" I don't think so. We both know that when we apparate it calls for a hell of a lot of focus. You remember sixth year. It's just as dangerous now as it was then. If Malfoy was in the middle of apparating and than passed out, he'd be at one bloody risk of losing a limb..." Ron snickered. "Or leaving one behind."

Harry nodded, drinking from a glass full of firewhiskey heavily. He and Ron had managed to sneak the bottle when either of the five women, plus his Lily, were busy with what was now the remnants of a very quiet dinner. Molly had coaxed Nora into coming back to the burrow for something to eat and time to rest. Harry had offered to stay with Scorpius, but after a discussion between Ginny and Luna, Neville had decided to stay behind. Three different sets of aurors and four member of the order including Seamus Finnigan had offered to stay on the grounds of Hogwarts for the next week or two. The guards and spells had been tightened once more, cast and recast over and over again, so what had happened to Draco's son, would not happen again.

His stomach turned sickly when he thought of James and Albus.

" It's likely he was summoned."

" By Avedra?"

Ron nodded, his eyes still trained on Hugo hovering about in the garden.

A week before both men, had come to the conclusion that the vow had been taken between Draco and Avedra. It had been no secret in the wizarding world that she had wanted her cousin under her little finger. To do her bidding. To work for her as the deatheater he had come to be once more. Up until the day before, neither he nor Ron or Hermione had any idea as to what the terms and condtions had accompanied the vow. Not until early that morning, moments after Draco had apparated in such a suspicious way, did Nora come to both he and Ron and tell them what Malfoy had signed away on.

It made sense. It did. Harry couldn't see fault in Malfoy's decisions. He would have done the exact same thing.

" Hey mum!"

" I swear Ronald, if we have to show our faces at St. Mungos with our son and another injury in tow..." Hermione appeared like lightening on the porch, her hands wrapped up in a dishtowel, her hair pulled back in a pony tail full of curls, dish suds accompaning them. " Hugo, get down now!"

" I'm fine mum!" The little boy whined his oppostion to her demand, but lowered himself to the ground quickly. " Dad and Uncle Harry are watching!"

" Listen to your mum kid." Ron smiled, amused with his son, as the pouting child hiked the steps to where his dad sat, passing the splintered broom over to his mum as he did. " I've told you, for the most part, mum's always right."

Hugo grinned.

Ron received a wet slap from the dishcloth. " Ouch!"

Hugo left the adults than, sounds of him shouting for Lily, followed by cracks of giggles from the cousins drifted against the air of the humid night.

" And for the most part?" Hermione took the seat next to her husband, leaning to quickly kiss his cheek, before stealing the glass of remaining whiskey from his lap.

" Okay you're always right love."

" Thank you."

Harry grinned when she lifted the glass to tap off of his. Ron shook his head, when his best friend and brother in law obliged his wife. " How's Nora?"

" Sleeping, finally." Hermione breathed relief, than narrowed her stare on the two men beside her. " I overheard you both talking about Draco's dissapearing act...you know it might just not be Avedra's doing this time?"

" Summoning him you mean?" Harry forgot to take a drink from his glass at Hermione's words. " How else could he have managed it than?"

She finished off Ron's drink quickly, passing the empty glass back to him with a bat of her eyelashes. " I think you need to think on what was taken from the ministry."

"What...papers and files?"

" I said taken Ronald."

" You mean Bellatrix's wand?" Harry looked as baffled as he sounded. " What does that have to do with Malfoy?"

" I would think nothing. You said yourself that the documents Draco and the others burned and destroyed were never even in your records. Like someone had placed them there, as if to give them all something to do. But something else was taken." She wrapped her arms about her stomach as the vision of Malfoy flying down the halls of Hogwarts flooded her mind once more. " His fathers cane."

" Once again...other than it being Malfoy's dads walking stick, what does that have to do with..." Ron's words trailed off, and before Hermione or Harry could question the lightbulb shattering over his head, he was on his feet and diving into the house behind them. Mumbles, cursing and the unmistakable crashing of the insides of a closet coming down on Ron's head followed.

" Here!" Ron appeared a second later, covered in dust and mothballs. He sat again, brushing more dust off of the book he had now rested on his lap. It had no title, and no author to claim their work written upon it. It was bound with black leather, and coils of brass, that entered the pages at the far top, and seemed to get lost within the pages inside of it. " I remembered Dad bringing this home when I was maybe eleven, right before I went to Hogwarts." Ron grinned. " You can understand why I had forgotten about it up until now, seeing how for the seven years that followed I was more than distracted with dark lords, the occasional slug escaping my stomach and my future wife."

Hermione rolled her eyes. Harry agreed silently, and let Ron carry on. He opened each page, flipping back and forth as if to find the spot he had left off reading last before his fingers stopped on one obviously over read page. " It's a muggle book. My dad got it after one of their raids. He never told me where he got it, what specific raid it was."

The words were written slanted. Fingerprints that had faded year after year lay smudged across the worn paper as well. All three heads bent together over the book.

_**Spirit possession is a concept or belief in which a spirit or other entitie(s) may take control of a human body. In the world we live in today, there is evidence of this activity, paranormal and/or supernatural to prove these happenings. Once the body has become possessed by such a force, the individual of choice may show signs of erratic, out of place behaviour. This behaviour may include the following attributes: erased memories or personalities, convulsions, "fits" and fainting as if one were dying.**_

_**Other points of interest when it comes possession of ones body, also brings into question, how excessable objects are, family relics or artifacts, such as jewlery, or wristwatches, and even in some cases, mere coin. Studies within the paranormal community have shown that the greater significance an object had in a deceadents past life, may show basis for possesion to that specific piece.**_

_**This brings into question whether or not the person(s); who may come into contact with a specific object that has been cursed with the soul of the decedant; if that individual may become indirectly possessed with the spirit that has directly possessed the object at hand. This action is simply called **_**Transfer**_**.**_

" And we call that the Impirius curse." Ron said before closing the book. " But Draco is not under the impirus. If he was, there would be no way Avedra would have let him see Scorpius."

" Not to mention, if he was, do you really think Nora and the kids would still be breathing." Hermione shuddered. " They would have been taken care of weeks ago."

" So...what are we talking about here?" Harry looked to both of his friends, feeling the past they had shared together winding about them again. " It sounds like what happened to Katie Bell in sixth year. She touched the necklace and she was cursed."

Hermione cuddled closer to Ron when a chill passed over her, letting him pull her tightly into his chest. " Maybe. Maybe not. We can't be sure of anything. What we do know is that Malfoy has his father's cane...we've seen his behaviour change abruptly in the span of only one day around him. He passed out right before your eyes. Maybe this Transfer idea is real...and it's made more real in the hands of magic..."

They all fell silent for the moment.

Harry was the first to speak. " We can't trust him now. We can't let him near Nora. Not Scorpius. Not Lyra. We have no idea what he is now...when he left Hogwarts he was barely himself...before he left, Malfoy asked me, if the time came, and he seemed sure it would, he asked me to make sure he couldn't get to them."

Ron nodded. " Than that's what we'll do."

" Should we tell Nora?" Hermione added, her attentions wavering due to the giggles from her son and niece increasing in volume and mischief. When the sounds of thunderous footsteps running from the scene of a crime screamed through the burrow, she was on her feet and heading back through the door.

" Hermione...I don't think you understand."

Both of his friends stopped to stare at Harry, as he let his own gaze wander the length of the garden that sat under a clear black sky. The sounds of the family cat hissing, quickly followed by Molly Weasley scolding two amused children, didn't even effect a stone like Hermione and an expectant Ron.

" If the time came...when the time came...Malfoy wants me to kill him."

* * *

Nora fell against the door to her room., her breathing coming in uneven gasps. The walls that made up the place she had called her own for the last month, seemed to press hard against her as she stumbled for the bed that had slept in alone, for just as long. Her hands clutched at the patched comforter as she dropped to her knees, and her body fell against the frame.

Lyra who was tucked into the crib that she as well called her own now, slept silently, unaware of her mother as she cried into the blanket gripped between her fingers.

What was he thinking...

What was he bloody thinking...

Transfer? Impirius curse? What were they saying...that Draco wasn't Draco? That Avedra had done something to him...erased his memories?

Nora thought quickly through her pain, her mind trying to fit the jagged misplaced pieces together. How possible was it that Draco was under a curse that involved his father? She had heard of such things...yes, of course she had...but never had she thought it could have been possible. Possession? It would make sense...somehow it had to.

It wasn't Draco.

It was one day...just one day with him..and she saw what everyone else saw. No one could miss it. Nora was the last to admit it. After seeing her husband with their children, it was a wonder she was able to admit it at all...but it was true. Something had changed inside Draco, or at the very least, was taking place.

Never had he ever lifted a finger to touch her in a harmful way. Never had he looked at her with violence...never..not until the day before, when Nora saw clouds of confusion and rage smoldering the silver of Draco's eyes.

It wasn't her husband.

Tears chased one another down her face.

This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. These people...these sick people wanted to take everything from her. They wanted her husband...and she was sure, so sure, that at the very moment she thought the words, they had him. Nora felt it. They wanted her son. Her daughter. Her flesh. Her blood...her fucking heart. And for what? To make sure the name Malfoy would be clean and pure and smudge free? To make certain that the son and daughter that carried the name didn't ever get the same rights and privaledges that they themselves, so undeserving, so worthless, had all their spoiled lives. Did this woman really think that her blood was cleaner...unmarked...better?

Noras face still trailed with tears, but her expression had darkened.

None of them could see a way out. No one, not even the people who Nora had come to think of as her friends, could see the end result of the threat that her family, her children were constantly under. She couldn't let this go on...

Just like Draco wasn't letting it go on. He had his plans...his ideas. He had found his own way through the tunnel too the light at the end of it.

His solution was giving up his life for the people who needed him most.

Nora managed to stand, her legs stronger than she has expected them to be. Her hands released the blanket she had been clinging to as she moved away from the bed and to the crib where her daughter slept.

How she had lived through almost losing Scorpius, Nora would never know...if she had to relive it again...she knew her heart would never recover. There was a threat still out there...one that wasn't going away without her families complete and utter destruction.

She couldn't let it happen.

And just like Draco, she saw the light at the end of her own tunnel.

_**Hope you enjoyed this one...I had to pack a lot of detail into this chapter so I hope no one got bored to death throughout it. So Nora is finally taking things into her own hands! I've been waiting for this chapter, and even though it came late in the story, I'm still happy with the progress of the chapters and her involvement. So next chapter, we'll see more of Nora, as well as the trio...that I'm certain of...I'm thinking on the epilogue!!**_

_**Ideas?! Let me know!!**_

_**POST!!**_

_**Breeva xxx**_


	19. Chapter Nineteen

**Chapter Nineteen**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

_**Hello All! Between moving, getting ready for school and of course the release of Breaking Dawn I have been more than occupied! But as it is I still have devotion to this story and like I have said, it is coming to an end. Anyway, read and reveiw! Let me know what you think!!**_

" Hey Scorp! Scorp...hey Malfoy...wait up!"

Scorpius kept his head low as he walked the corridor towards the slytherin common room, doing his eternal best to ignore his name as it echoed off the walls of the hall. The eldest Potter caught up to his friend with little to no effort and took his place next to Scorpius, interest mixed with concern evident on his sharp face.

" Where you going in such a hurry?"

" Common room to grab my books...I gotta meet Rose in the library."

" Ahhh..." James snickered, jabbing Scorpius in his arm. " Late night study session. If I didn't think you were alright Malfoy, I might have to chaperon this date."

" Shut it Potter..." He snapped, his own voice surprising himself as well as James. " It's not a date. I missed a lot while I was in the hospital...Rose is just helping me catch up..."

James grinned, as usual recovering quickly from his friends blatant stab at him. " Well, don't stay out too late...my uncle Ron might look like he has sawdust between his ears but with Rosie...well, I think when she was born he had a chip installed in her that alerts him when any boy gets too close for his liking."

This made Scorpius only grin slightly, but he nodded anyway as he closed in on the slytherin common room, and James and he parted ways.

The common room was quiet when the hidden door built into the black stone wall opened before him. Either everyone was in their dorms prepping for the next slew of exams that he himself was so far from prepared for, or they had all taken to the kitchens, where the house elves had been baking and cooking all day, using the students as willing guinea pigs for their hazy concotions.

Scorpius supposed the latter as he climbed the winding staircase that led to his own dorm.

A heavy feeling flooded his stomach as he closed in on his room. Memories, that seemed so much more like a nightmare burned his brain. His hand, shaking slightly reached for the doorknob and turned it with as much stone bravery as he could give muster at that moment. His breath that he had been holding, released the moment he was assured there was no one lurking in his room. No one waiting for him. No one ready to reach out and wrap a pair of cold hands around his neck.

He shuddered, and in a quick movement, grabbed at his bags and slammed the door shut behind him.

It was still there. The vivid vision of this person, cloaked in all kinds of silk, hovering over him as he fought against what was trying to expel the life from him. Scorpius would never forget the laughter, the breathing...a pair of ice cold blue eyes waiting for their victim to give into the inevitable.

He quickened his pace toward the library, hopeful that Rose would fill his head with enough words and number and spells that he would only have enough room for his studies and as usual, her.

His father was a regular in his sleepless nights as well. How could he not be...

Something had happened. He heard the whispers, whispers that had passed from parents to their children, than from child to child. Rose and Al told him to ignore what he heard. James had managed to get a week of detention and a very ugly howler from his mum for punching Danver Cici's, a popular third year ravenclaw for telling a group of first years that Scorpius was probably going to end up a deatheater as well, just like his father.

But none of it really bothered him. None of it seemed important. Scorpius had lived through the worst...and was still living in a dismal present. His family had come apart in such a short time span...and there was no telling as to when...or even if he would be see them all together again.

He thought of his sister than, and the blistering rage he had felt for his dad resurfaced once more. He tried to swallow it, extinguish the anger before he found Rose in the emptied library...but all he could see was red.

He should have yelled and shouted at his dad when he opened his eyes! He should have refused his words that now seemed just as empty as the aisles he was blindly walking. He should have gathered all his strength and knocked him one, just like James had done to Danver!

A shimmer of another kind of red from under the dim lights of the library immediatley focused his attentions to where Rose sat in the shadows. Her head was bent toward her book, coils of her hair hiding her face from him as he approached her still form.

Absorbed in her books and oblivious to Scorpius as he wandered slowly toward her. He had to admit he liked it this way. It gave him more time to stare in awe without one of her cousins berrating him for his pink cheeks or his slightly jarred mouth.

" Just like her muggleborn mother...so pretty."

Scorpius stopped hard in his tracks, the grip on his books slipping as his hands instantly went for Rose. The gloved hand that coiled about her neck from the shadows behind her had his eyes almost bulging from their sockets.

A whisper...a fractured, pained sound blew from her mouth, from somewhere underneath all her beautiful hair. " Run Scorpius."

His hand instantly found his wand, just as the shadows released the voice Scorpius could not match to the person now standing before him. A man, cloaked in the same black his father had worn the day he had spent at the hospital, stood before him...his hand still latched about Rose...who was now trembling under the embrace.

A pair of silver eyes were emptied. His fathers mess of hair...was now gone...shaved off, leaving his face open and sharp. A smile he had never once seen cross his fathers lips now seemed to spit at Scorpius as the wand he held in his unsteady hand, somehow ended up pointing directly at this stranger.

The man laughed. " Now, now...let's not be hasty..." He shook Rose violently, gaining another horrified gasp from her lips. " You don't want anything to happen to little Rose now do you son?"

" Let her go." He didn't hear his voice. His heart was beating too hard, waves of rage billowing harder once more within him

Another laugh. Not his father's laugh escaped from the amused person glowering at him. " So little like Draco...I would have bet you would have turned tail and ran for somewhere neat and tidy to hide."

Not Draco. Not his dad. His wand faultered.

And a pair of arms circled him like rope.

His skin crawled when the laugh...that same laugh...dripped around him. Silk brushed his arms. His heart slammed into his chest.

" No...I'm not your father. Draco unfortunatly had to step back from his responsibilties...and someone had to finish what needs to be finished...meaning you of course...you and that little abomination you like to call a sister..."

Anger flashed across his face and even with the set of familiar arms wrapped about him, Scorpius struggled to free himself of the restraint. Nails, sharper this time, sharper than he remembered dug into his skin once more.

" Should we do it here Lucius..." The voice whispered behind him, sounding shrill and cold. Scorpius shoved at the body behind him, now recognizing things about his attacker that he had been too stunned to realize in his panic. " Finish him off...bring the little halfblood back for the dog to munch on..."

It was a woman.

Lucius smiled serenly, forcing a sobbing Rose to her feet, his hand still wrapped securely around her neck. " No. Not now. I need them both. And how rude would it be if we were to have all the fun? Such a selfish display would do nothing more but provoke my dear neice...and we wouldnt want that..." His eyes slid back to the boy still battling against the shadow surrounding him. " Would we Scorpius?"

" Let her go! She has nothing to do with this!"

" No...she doesn't..." He smiled wider, a brilliant smile that would have dazzled the room if there was anyone around to come under it's disatrous spell. " But I would think this..." He shook the little red head once more, before releasing her violently back to the waiting arms of her friend. " Little Rose Weasley here, she will most defintley produce more of an audience for our little show."

"Scorpius, I'm sorry..." Rose sobbed once she had tangled herself against him and his handler willingly. " You should have ran."

But Scorpius wasn't listening. His eyes stayed trained on the face of his father, meeting the fixed gaze of the eyes that no longer belonged to him. They never wavered, even when Lucius tapped his wand...his father's wand...against his cheek, Scorpius held his set in stone glare.

" How refreshing it will be to put an end to all this...wouldn't you agree my dear?"

Shallow breathing, like an animal begging for water sounded in Scorpius's ear. Her voice seemed to prick like nails dragging across a chalkboard when she spoke, her want, her thirst for what she assumed was already her own, evident in every tone she pitched. " I've been waiting for far too long my love..."

And Lucius nodded, once more feeling bits and pieces of his old self coming into the flesh and the blood that was slowly erasing his son from ever existing. He stared blindly at the child his son had called his own, and with a quiet satisfaction knew that finally, if it ever was the time to rest in peace, when this was over, when their little lives had come to a close, eternal peace would be his reward.

Just as their deaths would also be her bliss.

" Yes my darling Deidra...you have waited for far too long."

_**Really short I know, but I'm already on the next one and its coming along. I really have to blame Breaking Dawn for my delay, just as I blamed the entire series for every delay I had while writing this story. Anyway, I plan to update more and quicker beeecccaaause I am also in the process of writing a sequel to The Missing Pieces! First chapter is done, but I'm going to continue and finish this one before I begin to post chapters for my new fanfic!**_

_**The fic has no title yet, but guess whose all grown up? lol! Scorp ( I have a hard time letting go of the Malfoy clan) and Rose! The rubber is buring again, and I have a story to go along with what I hope to see written as a tumoltuous friendship, polar opposites, flourish, fall and than maybe flourish once more! Who knows! Love? OF COURSE!**_

_**Anyway...here's a sneak peek!**_

" **Four years!" She sounded exasperated and beaten all at the same time. She turned on her heel, ready to walk away, but turned again wiping away her pathetic tears as she did. **

**His head was bent slightly to his left, and he was studying her quietly, his eyebrows drawn over his clear glass blue eyes, for the first time, unreadable. His hair was long and unkept, and a darker shade of the blond he had been growing out of ever since fifth year. She let herself linger on the features of his face a little longer than she felt comfortable with, than forced her eyes beyond his ever increasing height, to where the school they had shared for the last seven years of life stood. **

" **I thought we were supposed to be going to college in those four years. You were the one who had the idea to travel before September...merlin Scorp...you were the one booking the hostels in Thailand for us! And all of a sudden you've decided to fly off to America and settle into a job that you feel obligated to take, but you don't even want!?"**

" **What gave you the impression that I don't want this job?" He hated fighting with her, it really was the worst thing in his world when they did, but he could feel one buring in his chest, ready and waiting for her temper to strike the chord it always did when it came to their arguments. " I never said I didn't want this job Rose."**

" **What? You do? ?!" Her eyes slammed against his. Rose was as aware of the inevitable end to this sudden heated discussion. At this point, she welcomed it. " You, Scorpius Malfoy, who I've seen literally gag at the sight of a suit and tie, would suddenly like nothing more than to take on desk work at a cushy, money grubbing, wear that suit and tie Monday thru Friday kind of job because his grandfather, a man who barely aknowledged his existence until very recently, realized how grand and wonderful retirement looked?!"**

**And the burning combusted inside of him as he knew it would. Seconds later flames licked at his throat. " It's better than wasting away four years of my life with my nose stuck between pages of a book like you! I don't want to go to college Rose! I never did and the only reason why I even agreed to fill out those bloody applications you kept pushing on me was to shut you the hell up!!" His eyes burned as his best friends lit with the same rage. " I'm not like you! I don't want to keep reading and taking tests and studying and taking more tests and than studying some more! Unlike you, I'm done with this! Unlike you, I'm done hiding behind those books!"**

_**Soooo?lol! I think this one is going to be lighter...but you never know...we shall see!**_

_**Review! Reveiw! Reveiw!**_

_**I looove Reveiws! They make me happy and make me write faster!**_

_**Pushhh the buttttton!**_

_**Breeva xxx**_


	20. Chapter Twenty

**Chapter Twenty**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

_**Author's note: The following is what happened to the nasty little piece of work, Deidra Crabbe. I hope everyone is following the story..funny sometimes I even have to retrace my work and make sure me, the author, isnt making anymore fatal mistakes! Read and Enjoy!**_

_**One month before**_

_The door had closed on the two witches long before, leaving Goyle fearful for her, but unable to help the inevitable. Her jealousy had caused their failure, had caused Draco's escape. She had no control over herself. She was a bomb waiting to explode and take them all with her. Goyle fiddled with the ring on his finger, his father's ring, twisting it around and than twising it back as his mind contimplated barging through the doors he had shut and locked from the outside. He had trapped her like an animal going to slaughter...Avedra being that slaughter._

_His heart quickened when he heard her laugh pitch like demons cackling about his massive form._

_But his massive form walked away from the blood being spilt beyond the doors, the coward inside of him making it easier._

* * *

_" Is it what you want?"_

_" Yes, it's what I want. It's what I've wanted from the beginning."_

_" And there is no other way my dear friend."_

_" No. No other way."_

_Avedra nodded, her back turned from the witch with the white blond bob of hair._

_Her featured were closed off, cold and sharp. The only excitement lay in her eyes, two pools of ice ready to break under the weight of the decision that suddenly seemed the only way._

_" I want what is mine. What was promised to me. What he promised me all those years ago."_

_Avedra turned to face the woman. " Than it shall be yours."_

_" Tell me what I have to do."_

_Her head cocked slightly, absorbing the pathetic mess she was now about to pass it all over to. All the power would soon be no longer her own. For the first time in Avedras life, she would have to just trust in the greed and the want and the bloodlust that the younger witch had carved in whatever soul she had left. There was no magic to be involved, just pure untamed hate._

_" You have to die Deidra."_

_A sudden flash of fear enveloped the face of the woman lost in her own crazed mind. " Avedra..."_

_" By my hand...of course by my hand. But your death will only be a temporary sleep my dear friend. You need to die, so I can call you to life when the time is right, when Draco has agreed to the vow, and when things have fallen into place...when they have fallen into the hands of their rightful owners."_

_" I don't understand Avedra."_

_" You do not have to darling." Her hand placed softly against Deidra's, smoothing the tips of her fingers over her cool skin. Avedra stared doe like at the witch, until Deidra lifted her pulsing blue eyes to meet the empty black ones looming over her. One hand lifted to the blond of her hair, Avedra running her hand gently through it, tucking it behind an ear and exposing a piece of jewlery, twinkling brighter than any star, on her earlobe. "When I breath air back into your lungs you will do as you please. You will be out of my control dear one. Born again."_

_" Out of your control."_

_" Yes...your own free will. You can do as you please, and you will answer to no one. You will no longer listen to me. You will no longer have to wait for my command to kill the little mudblood and the halfblood bitch. You my dear Deidra, can take them both, and answer to no one for your actions."_

_Her eyes had widened, narrowed and than sank into utter absolution as Avedra swooned her words about the impressionable witch. " And Draco?"_

_" While you sleep, he will be entering into the vow with me. I will agree not to kill his family. He will agree to take your place as my deatheater and do my bidding. I will agree to never set one of mine onto his family, his children, and he will agree to be mine until I decide to let him go back to his family..." Avedra leant her body closer to Deidra's, now feeling the heat of her excitement throbbing under her skin as the visions of Avedras idea circled her brain. _

_" But what family will he have to come home too? Now that is completely your decision."_

_" And we can be together again."_

_" Of course."_

_Silence collapsed about the room. Deidra wasn't thinking about her death, she wasn't thinking about the pain of it, or if it was even possible for a mere witch to bring her body back to life. Her mind and heart were weakened already, almost completely dead, but still sputtering life because of him. Because of Draco. For Draco. It was for him. _

_" I will do anything for him...including death."_

_A grin wrapped around Avedra's mouth, as she wrapped her stiff arms around another pon in her plan. " It will be quick my darling."_

_Deidra went to speak, to give her thanks for her compassion, but her breath was cut, as a thin blade she had not seen Avedra produce from the folds of her dress, slipped across her throat_. _The knife sliced through the skin of her neck with ease and Avedra locked her eyes on Deidras struggle for air, that would never come. She tried to scream but it was soundless, the meeger attempt for help only bubbling and spitting red specks onto Avedras porcelin skin. _

_The struggle was only a human reaction of course. As Deidra felt her own blood, slip down over her chest from the clean slit in her neck, even the scent of it clogging her senses couldn't snatch her back to reality. All she could see was the reason for her death. Her body became heavy, leaning her weight into Avedra as she suffered the ends of her life in the arms of the women who was giving her what she craved._

_Avedra stroked her hair as the breath finally left her first willing victim. _

_Before she dropped the emties body to the floor and summoned for Goyle to clean up the mess his former deatheater had bled all over her tidy floor, she cupped the powder white face of Deidra Crabbes in her blood soaked hands, and removed the witches earings._

* * *

Time slipped by slowly for the people who remained still and quiet amongst the chaous that was unfolding around them. The aurors looked to Harry now, as Hermione and Ron were less than coherant. The shock remained stilled in them, even when questions flowed and were met with dismal answers.

Nora sat away from both sets of parents. Her face was expressionless, even when a set of aurors descended upon the Mrs. Malfoy demanding answers that she didn't have. Her lips pressed together hard with each question, her eyes only able to blink with each incredibley personal inquiry. Ignoring them was easy, but when she looked to find Hermione and Ron so stone like, embracing each other in their greif, the hot anger she was all to used to feeling founds it's way to the surface, the look of pounding rage evident enough in her eyes to send the aurors and their bombardment of questions skittering away in haste.

They had been notified of their childrens dissapearance during the same hour both Rose and Scorpius had been taken from the grounds of Hogwarts. Minister Lornaganne as well as Headmistress McGonagall had arrived at the Burrow moments after everyone had settle into bed for the night, the horrific news weighing against them both as they walked through the old fireplace and into an almost deserted living room.

Nora had been the only one awake that night, soothing the cries of her daughter who was soon to be expecting her first tooth anyday now. Both witch and wizard had found the muggle curled upon the Weasleys sunken couch, with a blond baby nestled on her shoulder crying softly into the little witches cheek.

Soon, the whole house was turned inside out and upside down. Hermione and Ron who had taken to staying at the burrow with Nora, immediatley flooed for Harry and Ginny, who arrived moments later, Lily in Harry's arms still sleeping, both clothed in their pajamas, their wands in hand and nothing more. Minister Lorganne did his best to explain the situation, but even he didn't have an explantion as to who had gotten onto the grounds this time, not with so much security guarding the castle and monitoring the occupants within it's every move. He was as boggled as McGonagall, who had decided against trying to explain away the fear that had engulfed the burrow in such a way that no one was able to even shed tears, scream or let themselves lose on an innocent wall.

The Burrow was far from safe anymore. Lornaganne's thinking was that if someone had somehow broke the spells that had been cast to protect Hogwarts, there was no telling what kind of magic they were dealing with. At the moment, no one was safe, but the Ministry was where the Aurors and the Order themselves spent most of their time, so it was settled between themselves that the Potters as well as the Weasleys would be safest within these walls.

The fact that Nora and Lyra were to come as well only added to the stress amongst the people who had been assigned and failed at keeping her child as safe.

" We will wait for word from them." The minister strolled about the groups that had formed in the heart of the ministry, like they were gathering to put on their war paint and head off into battle. " They will send it, as Voldermort did in his time, they as well will be no different."

" This has nothing to do with the Ministry." Harry growled, his patience quickly becoming obselite. " This has nothing to do with the Order, with any single Auror. This for once has nothing to do with me! This is not a battle to be fought over power minister!"

" I disagree Potter...there is always someone younger and more valiant when it comes to stepping into the shoes of the head of the ministry." He scoffed and continued to ready himself, and his troops for a war none of them would be able to win.

"Are you bloody daft man?!" Ginny stepped away from her mother, her face stemmed with irritation for the blubbering old fool they had to call Minister.

" Excuse me!?"

Harry walked around his wife, setting her behind him. He hissed as he spoke, approaching the older wizard and trying his best to keep their conversation just that. Their own. He eyed Nora smiling sadly at her daughter who was sitting comfortably in her mothers arms, a teething ring dripping with drool snug in her little mouth.

" They don't want your job! All they want is her son and her daughter dead!"

" Well, I doubt that Mr. Potter. Isn't the childs father involved with these band of hooligans? Why would he let them kidnap his own son?!"

Harry shook his head again, taking a much needed breath before pushing the subject with the man any farther. " We have reason to believe that Malfoy is far from himself."

" Secrets Potter?" Minister Lornaganne's white eyebrows knitted over a set of suspicious eyes. " How very unlike you."

" We can't be sure. We only suspect it for now."

The whispers and murmurs slowly hushed about the massive room. Harry continued to speak to the minister while the ears of the room seemed to grow. Nora couldn't be bothered. She knew what Harry was explaining to the old man, the same thing that he, Hermione and Ron had discussed themselves not two nights before. It was a theory, something that was only a guess, but it was the only thing she was hanging onto for the moment. That one suspicion was holding her together by very thin pieces of thread.

" Transfer?...It sounds like the imperius curse Potter. Are you telling me this is some kind of muggle magic?" The Minister grinned, shaking his head at Harry as if he was the one on the wrong side of the situation. " And how is this possible? Through objects? Of course it exists in this world, but the muggle world.." The wizard slid a glance toward Nora. " No offense my dear, but your muggle community has never shown signs of such power...unless of course they were muggleborns."

" But it's a theory and if there is any truth behind it, combined with magic, it could be something just as powerful as the Imperius." Ginny stayed behind her husband, but her thoughts mingled with her annoyance and bubbled with frustration, directing it all at Lornaganne.

Ron had quietly joined Harry now, his face simmering red, his hands trembling at his sides. Hermione looked on, but her own hands remained in her lap, twisting together in one another.

" We think that Avedra has used Lucius Malfoys cane as a way to almost brainwash Malfoy. That she has used the ideas of the Imperius, but has made it undetectable by using muggle magic." Harry watched the ministers face snap with rage." We think right now he has no idea what he's doing."

" What he's done." Ron spoke sharply, his voice shaking as hard as his body now.

" Ludacris! Not possible!" The Minister walked away from the duo, shaking his head, and than doubling back to sneer at both men. " So what are you saying than Potter? That Avedra's deatheaters are nothing but the living dead? That each of them is only a body and not a soul? That all of them, they have no idea what they are doing because of some walking stick or piece of jewelery?!"

" That's it!" Hermione was on her feet, her face now alive with realization, her eyes wide with fear but what looked like hope. " Minister, we need to see the records of stolen items that have been taken from the vault in the Auror's office over the last ten years!"

" Mrs. Weasley, I know that I should never question such a witch as yourself and such an amazing talent I have working for me, but you know yourself as well as your friends that those records are sealed and..."

" I don't give a bloody fuck if those records are sealed and for your eyes only Minister! I want to see them, and I will see them even if I have to make a threat on your prestigous life!" Her heart was racing. Her hands were almost ready to reach out and strangle the life from the astounded man who was now taking a careful step back from the manic woman. " Tell me where to find them."

Moments later Hermione was flipping open file after file, throwing the useless material to the floor of the office, her hands moving rapidly as she dug deeper into cabinets that seemed to never end, and had papers bursting at the seams of each container as she worked her way quickly though the mess.

Nora watched but dared not speak. Harry, Ginny and Ron seemed to understand the raging wild witch, and had joined the tirade on the Auror's Office, leaving no piece of paper unturned, leaving nothing to chance. The minutes seemed to pass slowly, and they only brought more help. Neville Longbottom and Luna also joined the foursome, an unspoken understanding between the six wizard and witches as they destroyed whatever came into their hands and meant nothing of importance to them. Molly stood by Nora, hushing Lyra and causing a blue ribbon from her bright orange hair to billow around the child for entertainment purposes and a distraction.

Nothing couldn't tear her own eyes away from Hermione and the rest as they seemed to delve deeper and deeper into the pits of the remaining files. There was so little left. Her heart slowly sank to her feet.

" Vinley, Antonin!"

Nora watched Hermione fall back onto her bottom, as if the piece of paper she held in her hands had knocked the air out of her. Her hands gripped the parchment so tight, it looked as if the paper would rip between her knuckles. " Six years ago..." She was reading, skimming, picking out the important details. " Six years ago...a watch...a white gold watch... five different black hands...diamond incrusted. It was stolen after a breech of security, it was thought to just be a regular theft. Nothing else was taken!"

" And here...four years ago...a locket, gold...the intial C engraved on the necklace..." Her eyes widened slightly. " Crouch Jr, Barty."

The Minister shook his head as he walked about the room, stopping in front of Harry, his expression still one of suspicion. " What does this mean?!"

" Five years ago...a slytherin house ring...Goyle Sr, Gregory." Hermione continued, her eyes tracing the pages as if they were her only form of oxygen." And that same year, not a month later a set of sterling silver earings were also taken...it was believed someone in the Auror's office had gotten greedy and took them...they belonged to Emiline Crabbe. Her husband was Vincent Crabbe Sr."

" What does this mean?!" Minister Lornaganne roared now, almost ready to tear his hair out from their blatant refusal to answer his questions.

Harry stooped to take the papers from Hermione, while Ron helped his wife from the floor she still sat sprawled upon. He traced the words she had just read, before stuffing the parchment into the inside of his jacket.

" Vinley Dolohov. Gregory Goyle, Helena Crouch, Deidra Crabbe." He looked to Ron, who only nodded in his own impatient rage. " She is using Transfer."

" Potter, I demand answers! I'll have you remember who you are dealing with! What does all this mean?!" Flushed with anger and ready to set the room on fire, the Minister stormed toward the infamous man, his finger pointed dangerously close to the glasses that still sat upon Harrys nose.

" It means you have no idea who you are dealing with Minister. Literally. They're not themselves, Malfoy included. Avedra is cursing them all threw everyday objects that they would never take off or misplace..." Harry turned to Nora. " It was a set up. All of it. The attack on the ministry, the off job they did on burning such unimportant documents on Avedra's orders. I didn't make any sense. She wanted Malfoy because she needed Lucius. The fact that when Draco saw the cane and took it was a given to the situation."

" It was his fathers." Nora spoke almost soundlessly, her heart torn in too many different directions. " Of course he would want it."

" When Malfoy entered into the Unbreakable Vow with his cousin, he couldn't have known what she had planned, and the moment the cane was in his hand, the curse was cast..."

The Minister huffed, but stayed silent.

" Draco wouldn't hurt them." It wasn't a question, it was an odd sort of statement that left Nora's white lips and ended with a horrified breath. " He wouldn't."

" But Lucius would." Hermione finished with tears in her voice, burying her face into Ron's trembling shoulder. " Rose..."

" We have to find them Harry." Ron's words snapped and sneered. His face had aged in only a matter of hours.

" We will Ron."

"And you remember what Malfoy asked of you? You remember what he wanted?" The red headed wizards voice pitched with his anger and panic. " You remember Harry?!"

Harry nodded, now keeping his eyes away from Nora, who had slumped against a desk, her hands wrapping tightly around her stomach. " Harry."

He couldn't look at her. Malfoy's words were clawing at his memory. Lyra began to cry from the far side of the room than, but Nora stayed next to Harry, her eyes drawing his gaze to her in one slow painful motion.

" Harry."

" It won't come to that Nora."

Nora watched her daughter now. She was so much like her father. His eyes. His unmistakable hair. The features that had grown on Lyra's face were Draco's in every way, so much so, she was sure her daughter could pitch a smirk, mirroring her father exactly. He hadn't known her. He had barely held her. But she was his daughter...and Scorpius his son. Draco was their father...and what he wanted for them...what he had asked of Harry, it was the last words to ever really come from the heart that loved his children just that much.

Her own heart lurched in her chest. " He's threatened the lives of my children Harry. Rose..." She tried so hard to keep her grief away from her voice, but it spilled away from her quickly, her hands covering her face as Lyra continued to cry and reach for her mother. " I can't have that. I can't live in this world or my own world with Draco or Lucius or whoever else is trying to hurt my children or the people I love. I can't. Draco wouldn't want us to live in that kind of fear...in any fear... he wanted so much better for his children."

" What are you saying Nora?"

Hermione lifted her head from Ron's shoulder. Ginny stepped closer to the sobbing muggle, placing a delicate hand on her stiff shoulder. Neville and Luna stared anxiously at the scene unfolding, the decisions and choices being made in the tainted room reminding them both of quicksand or cement drying. Molly and Arthur held Lyra close as the childs cries for her mother softened to meek whimpers.

Nora lifted her tear stained face and stared into a blackness that was to be her life from that moment on. " I want you to do as he asked Harry. When the time comes, I want you to kill him."

_Okay so this chapter was not a wonderful chapter, but I struggled through it and kind of managed to write what I wanted. Next chapter will be better I promise._

_Any comments on the breif sneak peek of the new fic Im writing that I left on the last chapter?! Come on people!_


	21. Chapter Twenty One

**Chapter Twenty One**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

_**Author's note: So I looked for the name of a counter curse for the Alohomora spell but came up with nothing...maybe there isn't one? Anyway, if there is one could someone maybe let me know? thanks Breeva!**_

" Come now love...not even a smile for me?"

Ebon sauntered back and forth in front of both children, his body inclined to stop every so often in front of Rose, sniffing the air around her and grinning down on what he hoped would soon become his prey.

" So pretty..." His fingernail tapped Rose's cheek, pressing hard against her pale skin, his grotesque face creeping closer to her shut eyes and pinched expression.

" Fuck off mutt." Scorpius growled deep in his throat.

" What did you call me you little mudblood?" The wolf's spine snapped and his head whipped about, his mouth ajar, as if he was ready to devour the boy where he sat. " I'll remember to knaw her pretty little head off right in front of you if you don't keep your fucking mouth shut!"

" Mudblood? Original." Scorpius swallowed the urge to vomit at Greyback's last comment. " How does it feel to know your father let your mother live long enough to produce him a heir than ate her for dinner. That must be a nice family story..or maybe it's something you plan to do yourself to keep the exceptional bloodline you have going for you, alive and well..."

The dog was quick with his reflex, that was proved to be sure. Rose screamed painfully for her friend when Ebon slammed his fist into Scorpius's upturned face, followed by a swift kick to his ribs, that cracked under the pressure of the violent attack.

" Remember whose tied up mudblood..." Greyback sneered at the boy as his body slumped to the ground, an open gash on his cheek releasing crimson blood onto the floor he now lay against. Scorpius spit once at this, but only blood met his lips.

Ebon laughed and moved away from the witch and wizard. " Yes you think on that one Malfoy. Be a good little wizard and do as we tell you...be more like your father was." He sneered again as his eyes lit with amusement. " Stupid and willing to do anything to save the ones he loved." He winked at Rose, who didn't notice anything now but her friend struggling to breath through the blood dripping from his lips.

Scorpius gasped a little, but managed to find Rose through the stars he was seeing. He managed a light nod and a weak smile for her. Her face remained petrified.

" Now be good while I'm gone kiddies. If Avedra and Draco...Lucius..." He laughed, shaking his head with entertainment. " Or whoever, doesn't want me sampling the goods just yet, I had better make a run for some take out to ward off the hunger."

The moment the door shut, Rose was struggling against her restraints, her entire frame working to get to Scorpius before he choked on his own blood. " Scorpius!" She hissed as she watched his eyes begin to close lightly, than waver, than fall heavy again. " Scorpius...please!"

" I'm okay Rosie." He managed, spitting out some more iron tasting liquid from his mouth. " It's okay...I'm fine..."

" You have to turn over Scorp! Get on your side!" She hissed, fighting so hard with the ropes Goyle had twisted around their wrists. They couldn't be that complex, Rose thought as she pushed and squeezed her hands about the sharp material. Her father told her the man was an idiot, just a walking piece of timber. Rose felt her wrist burning, felt the skin peel where she fought it. But even pieces of brawn could tie decent knots, and this one was no different. She hissed in frustration, never taking her eyes of Scorpius. " Get on your side you jerk!"

" Jerk?" His eyes suddenly open a little wider, his mouth turned upward into what looked like an amused grin. " I didn't think you knew any bad words Rosie.."

" I know plenty! And if you don't listen to me and turn over on your side I'll be sure to use them all when I give a well thought out euology at your funeral Scorpius Malfoy!"

" That's the spirit." He grinned again, but in a slow, shifty movement, he managed to turn onto his side, where more blood pooled from his mouth. " Jeez...the mutt worked me over Rosie."

" You're an idiot as well." Rose shifted her weight and slid her bottom across the floor to where he lay, so she could watch him more closely. By the looks of things, the mutt had done more than work him over. All the blood now staining the legs of her jeans pointed in a horrifying direction. " You should have stayed quiet Scorp. He wasn't going to do anything to me without there go ahead...but you had to open your mouth and now look at you."

" You might have to carry me out of here."

" Stop making jokes." Her featured softened as quickly as they had hardened. " Are you in much pain?"

He shook his head against the floor, revealing the skin that had been smoothly cut across his cheek. " So you think they know we're gone yet?"

" Of course they do." Her eyes clouded with tears. " I'm sure my dad is out right now knocking down every door looking for us."

Scorpius laughed, than moaned when his chest contracted against what he now knew was a broken rib. " It really isn't a laughing matter is it?"

They both fell into silence than, Rose more preoccupied with her friends uneven breathing than whether or not either of them would ever see their families again. The room they had both been literally dragged to was as immaculate as the rest of the house they had been permitted to see before Scorpius's father and a blond woman had locked them behind the massive black and silver framed door. Moments later, Goyle had barged through the door, hesitated when he saw how young the hostages really were, but in the end, tied them up and told them to sit, to be quiet, and things might just go smoother for them.

Threy had been visited only twice since the beginning of their stay in the house of doom as Scorpius had named it so calmly when they were finally left alone. Greyback had been their last visitor. Avedra Lestrange had been their first.

She had said nothing to either of them upon entering, but walked through the doors to the room, her black robes trailing behind her, her eyes trained on Scorpius and only Scorpius.

When she finally stopped her weary walk, she stooped toward him, her expression unreadable, but her lips were quirked and crooked, as if she was fighting back a scowl. " How is it that you look like your father..."

Scorpius had said nothing, but stared back at the woman he hated so diligently with hell fire burning in his eyes.

" I want you to know little one, by name and only by name are you tied to Draco." She sighed, smoothing a hand so lightly across his cheek he almost didn't feel it. Avedra had laughed gingerly when he jerked his face away from her outstretched fingers. " But it's enough reason to kill you. Now your little sister...her blood is a little different than your own. Her blood is a little of your mothers and a little of your fathers. That means she's a little of my blood as well...and of course, well, I can't have that. My family, generations before me, we worked quite too hard to keep the likes of that kind of filth removed from our lineage...so.." She had sighed, slowly rising to her feet again, shaking her head, the scowl breaking now on her mouth. " Well, things are no different today. I'd apologize, but I somehow feel like one is owed to me."

Words that Rose had never heard Scorpius use before flew from his mouth than, but nothing had phased Avedra in the least. She only replaced the scowl with a fake smile and drifted from the room just like she had come.

" So Rosie, you've got two thirds of the golden trio genetics working for you here. Any ideas yet?"

" Shut up Scorp." She hissed once more, as she took up the battle with the rope again. " I wish my mum would have let my dad teach me how to apparate like he had wanted to. I bet she wished she had now."

Scorpius grinned lightly, but his head was spinning now, and his throat felt thick. Damn dog, he thought, as he tried to keep his eyes wide enough so Rose would think he was still coherant.

He faltered slowly at first, but soon he was unable to even read her lips as she mumbled and cursed at the ropes about her wrists. His eyes felt as heavy as his head did and he knew within moments, he was going to pass out.

And Rose would be alone. His eyes broke over the blackness trying to drag him under at the thought. He had to fight against it. What if Greyback came back for her. The look in the animals eyes would forever be burned into Scorpius's brain. No. He had to stay awake...

" Someone's coming." Rose spoke quickly, turning her entire body to block her friend from view.

The door rattled, and opened slowly, producing the man who had taken them to this room and made them hostages to the crazy, murderers now roaming the halls outside their prison.

" And what's happened here my dear child?" His voice was smooth as silk, mixed with a kind of sarcasm that suggested he really couldnt be bothered with anything at the moment regarding the state of the witch and wizard before him. " You're not trying to set yourselves free are you? I have to tell you, it would be a valiant effort and to you Miss. Weasley I would have to tip my hat." Lucius grinned, stepping closer to the little girl, tapping her knee with the end of his cane. " So much like your mother, always fighting. But you see, there is no escape. You could try, and we are so very bored at the moment, it may even be a fun little game to pass the time..."

He stopped quickly, his voice wavering.

The blood finally caught his eye.

" What's...what happened?"

" What do you think." Rose stayed still in front of Scorpius...but she watched the wizard before her look a little closer at her friend lying behind her. His breathing came harder now, quickened and sounded raspy against the soundless room. " The dog hit him...I think he may have broken some ribs."

Lucius blinked once. A sudden flame of a headache almost seemed to be crawling up and down his brain stem. " Move."

Rose sat still, not moving, her eyes defiant. " No. Even though I know the plan is to kill him, he still needs medical attention. I know he wouldn't want to dissapoint you or that crazy bitch you call a cousin by dying before you had a chance to end his life for him." Tears pricked at her eyes once more at the thought, but she stayed stone like even when the hands of the wizard pushed her aside.

His eyes took in the sight, and to his own panic and shock, his heart began to scream in his chest. His hands moved without his willing them to, touching the face of the damned wizard lying like death before him. The headache felt like flames licking at his insides, the smoke fogging his thoughts, thoughts that seemed to be moving further and further away from him.

" Scorp."

No! His mind felt like it was splitting down the middle, the little part he thought was gone of his son, tearing at the matter, trying to find a way to get out.

" Scorp. Open your eyes kid."

Lucius fought against the body that he had claimed as his own, he screeched and raged on inside, but the words he fought to speak seemed to flood out of him. Rose watched in her own kind of horror as the man's face twisted and tore, emotions spreading across, out and over as the wizard continued to call for an uncoherant Scorpius.

" What are you doing?" She pleaded with the man, wishing her arms free so she could bend her body over her friends and block him from whatever he had planned for Scorpius. " Please...leave him alone...please!"

" It's okay Rose." Draco glanced at the little girl, before training his fog covered eyes back on to his son, his bleeding, broken child.

Her eyes widened at the sound of the unfamilar voice. She stopped her struggle immediatley, her focus bouncing between Scorpius and the man now producing his wand from his robes.

" I'm not going to hurt him...but this has to be done fast okay? I don't know how long I can fight this..." Draco could feel the curse gaining back it's strength quickly, the surge of pain buckling his mind slowly. His hand shook as the wand followed the path to all the destruction that had been done to Scorpius. His nose was broken, and three ribs had been snapped. Draco hissed when he realized what the cause of all the blood was. " Rose...listen to me okay. I'm going to do my best to heal Scorp okay? But he's bleeding inside and I can only do so much." His breathing was coming in small gasps now, the scorching pain ripping it's way through his body once more. Draco moved quickly, removing the ropes from Rose's hands and feet than immediatly doing the same for his son. " When he's able to walk, there is a passage way, a way out of here, in the very next room. We used to, me and Goyle, we used to use it when we were kids. There are two large windows as soon as you walk through the doors, and between them there is a long picture of the slytherin crest, on the left hand side of the frame you'll feel a lever. Pull it hard okay, and the picture will lift. Follow it until you get outside. You take him and find someone, anyone! Get him to St. Mungo's okay Rose? Can you do that Rose?!"

He didn't wait for an answer. Time was running out. " Episkey." He cast once, over the damaged nose of his son, that another three times just to mend his ribs. Scorpius moaned as his bones suddenly began to shift back together." It's okay Scorp...it's almost over." He cast once more causing the gash on his son's face to dissapear, a light white line the only proof it had ever been there.

By the time Draco had finished, his forehead was dripping with sweat, his face was contorting once again with the rage of his father.

Draco rose to his feet, wavering as he did, breaking his weight against the closest wall to him. His head whipped about him, an urge to throw up bringing him back down unto his knees once more. " Go Rose! Now!"

" Come on Scorp!" Rose grabbed him around his waist and putting all her strength behind the little muscle she did have, managed to sit him upright. " Scorpius! Wake up!"

A groan, low and shuddering left his blood stained lips. His eyes fluttered once, than twice and than slowly peeled open. " Rose."

" Get up! Come on!"

"Alohomora" Draco felt his hand becoming his fathers again, but he cast the spell threw his pain now flaring up and around him where he knelt. The sound of the door clicking open brought relief and hot scorching anger blasting through him. His father's voice was becoming more and more vocal, now screaming at him, calling him weak, pathetic, that he would never win...that he had just buried both the mudblood and the girl. " Go!" He yelled. " Rose go now!!"

" Dad!" Scorpius knew his father's voice. " Dad!!"

" We have to go Scorp." Rose helped him to his feet, but his body stayed stiff, pulling towards where Draco was still bent, his body shaking, his hands covering his face and the curse broke over him in waves.

" Scorp...go!" His voice was fighting his fathers, the sounds of a war apparent within in when Draco spoke. " Go with Rose...go to St. Mungos...find your mother and tell her to.." He gasped, as if someone had literally knocked the air out of him, and he fell forward onto his hands. " Lyra..she has to run with her...now!"

" Dad..."

" Scorpius we have to go!!" Rose took his hand in her own, and pulled him toward the open door. " Please Scorpius!"

" Don't move..."

Both children froze, Scorpius immediatly bending his body toward Rose. His father was searching the floor for his wand, his fingers creeping along the hardwood, while his breathing seemed to even out and calm.

" It's not that easy..." He was mumbling now. " Not that easy... I suppose you think this will happen again, but it won't. When we're finished, your reason for fighting, and being will be gone...so why fight anymore...insolent child!"

" Run!" Scorpius stammered, pushing Rose through the doors. Her hand was in his, leading him down the same hallway they had come.

" Here!" She pushed the door open, her hands shaking in his. " The picture, the slytherin crest, he said, your dad told me there was a lever somewhere here...and to pull it and we would be able to get out of here..."

Scorpius slammed the door behind them, grabbing a chair from the corner of the room and propping it against the handle. He knew it wouldn't keep them or their magic out, but if it could buy them even just a few extra seconds it could make all the difference of them dying or living. Rose was on the otherside of the room , her hands working the lever, her face pulled in concentration, but her eyes were filled with fear.

" Can you find it!?"

" No..." Her voice pricked with tears again. The door began to shake behind then, voices, yelling, shouting and taunting their efforts sounded behind it.

" Scorpius!"

He took her place quickly, running his hands back and forth, reaching the height that he had and she didn't, up and over the picture, stretching everything he had in his arms until a round object sticking out of the frame came into his open palm. His eyes widened, and he pulled down hard.

The picture slid upward, as Draco had said it would, and Rose grabbed at Scorpius's hand, pulling him down off of the wingback chair she had been using to cram herself farther up the wall and toward the open passage way.

The door behind them blasted open. " Go Rose!"

Rose went to yell at him, she went to scream at him and try and reach him through the debree and clouds of dust now billowing around them, but his hand fell from her own, and the last thing she felt was him pushing her into the black tunnel.

The passage way slid shut.

And Rose was left alone in the darkness.

* * *

" We don't know where to look."

Harry watched Hermione lower her frozen body to sit on his couch. Nora was already there, her face emptied of any emotion. Ginny was watching them both attentively, as if their vacant eyes may give off some need for tea, food or sleep.

Ron ran his hands over his face, than through his hair, than back down over his face. " Even if we did, we have no idea what kind of magic they might be using to keep themselves hidden..." He groaned deeply, resting his forehead against his friends supper table.

" What makes you think they don't want to be found?" Harry looked to his wife.

" Of course they want to be found...why would they have taken Rose?" Ginny shook her head, than focused her attention back unto her friends.

" It sounds like Lucius." Harry added, sitting down next to her for maybe the first time in the last six hours. " He wants an audience." The sun was hitting the large bay windows of their home now, the rays sliding across their carpet, littered with Lily's mixture of dolls and toy trucks. No one had slept. No one had eaten. The last moments in time had been spent combing through maps of their world and even of muggle london. The places that Avedra had once occupied with her deatheaters, had already been raided days, maybe even months before hand, leaving them probable heaps of rubble by now. The Aurors, as well as specific members of the order had left the ministry earlier that night, and on Harry's orders, were told to finish the job. Seek out any place they may have stayed, tear through each and every room, if they found nothing, detroy it.

Hermione broke into tears again. Ginny and Ron both stood to comfort the broken mother. Nora blinked through the scene, rising slowly from the cusions. Harry watched her move across the room as if she were a ghost amongst them all. Her hair was flat against her forehead, her eyes seemed to have lost all their warm color, now faded and sunken in their sockets. She was white, pale, almost sick looking as she left the living room filled with sobbing noises.

Nora slipped down the hallway, trying to focus on the room where she had put Lyra to sleep. At the moment, she didn't want to be away from her daughter. Something inside of her kicked this instinct into high gear at the sight of the sun breaking over the horizon. It confused her, but she listened. Lily was sleeping soundly behind the first door she tried. The heap that lay snoring lightly under her comforter brought a small gasp from Noras mouth. Tears reached her eyes, but she pushed them back.

Her thoughts rewound. Her memories, ones that had faded into the hell that she was now living, seemed to move before her eyes again. How would she ever get it back for them? And who was them now? Her and Lyra? Her, Lyra and Scorpius...Draco? Tears suddenly brimmed and fell over her cheeks. Her hands shook as she closed the door on Lily, leaving the little girl with her soundless and happy dreams.

A soft crooning sound met her before she finally found the door that her child slept behind. At first, Nora listened, pressing her hands to against the wood, her heart tightening in pain at the sweet little sounds her daughter was waking up with. But those precious seconds, quickly turned into the beginnings of unsurmountable horror. There was a voice beside her childs chirps in the room.

She threw herself at the door, and it opened easily, slamming against the wall behind it. Lyra broke into a tirade of fitful cries.

A figure stood over the empty crib, the arms of the cloaked figure, holding her daughter, a woman's voice doing it's best to sooth the baby.

" Did mommy scare you...what a horrible mother to do such a thing to a pretty little thing like you..."

Her breathing came hard and sharp as she took a step into the room, closing the door tightly behind her, shutting out the oncoming shouts of the people she promised to protect. " Give her to me."

The woman turned to face her than, pulling the hood of her cloak down as she did. Her mouth was painted red, turned up into an inviting smile. " I don't think I will."

Harry's voice exploded from behind the door.

Deirdra lifted her wand and quickly cast the counter curse to keep the boy who lived and his idiot griffindors out of what was now only between her and the filthy muggle.

" Where's my son?"

" Oh...the little mudblood is fine. He has a mouth on him though. He doesn't know a bad thing when it's breaking a few ribs." The pain that creased over her face made Deidra boil over into light laughter. She looked back to Draco's daughter than, shaking her head slowly. " Do you want to see you brother little one? Do you want to ask mommy if you can go, or should I?"

" Please..." Nora knew the woman now and the thought of begging her after she has almost killed her and Lyra all at the same time burned a hole in her skin. The woman greeted the plea with another quick smile.

" She hasn't done anything. My son hasn't done anything."

" Oh but that's so far from the truth." Deidra produced her wand again, slowly and skillfully, watching the terror she thrived on ignite on the womans face. The wand tipped in her hand, brushing Lyra's white gold hair off of her forehead. Nora took a step toward them, panic bubbling deep inside of her. " They exist."

" Give her to me." Nora's hands were outstretched. She took another step toward the witch and her daughter. Deidra stepped back, a scowl twisting on her lips.

" We'll be leaving now. Say goodbye to mummy." She stated, taking her eyes off Nora to peer at the child now squirming in her arms.

And in that moment many things happened.

Nora vaulted herself at the woman, her hands twisting around Deidras hands, breaking her balance and slamming both woman, witch and child against the wall behind them.

Harry heard the immense bang, followed by screaming and yelling, mixed with Lyra's cries.

Hermione stood with Ginny's arms wrapped around her, while Ron cast spell after spell and Harry threw his weight into the door that wouldn't open.

Rose fell threw the fireplace in a plume of neon green flames, her own screams for her mother and father, matching the incoherant noise flooding the house from the locked down room.

And Deidra apparated, taking mother and child with her.

_So? What do you think? I have no idea how this came together, but it just did! How nice! So, I hope you enjoy it, but it is one of the more longer chapters so I hope it kept you interested enough!_

_Review?_


	22. Chapter Twenty Two

**Chapter Twenty Two  
**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!  
**

_**Author's note: So this is the second last chapter. Next chapter..well I have no idea. This whole process has been pretty well like that. I've really enjoyed writing this fic, and I think that's why I've tried to draw it out as long as physically possible. Anyway, to all my readers who have reveiwed, of any kind including good or bad, I want to thank you all so much. Seeing your messages has kept me going and made me smile...and kept me going. You are all wonderful people, and talented writers...yes I did creep on some of your work, and I will continue to!! Harry Potter will live on through you!!**__  
_

" You incredibly stupid bitch!"

Nora hit the floor hard, her hands breaking her fall, but the weight of the woman now on top of her sent her flat on her back, her head smacking just as hard against the hardwood. She was only able to cradle and cusion Lyra from the landing, sheilding her little face into her chest, while Deidra's hand went about her neck, immobilizing her body and stealing her breath.

" You've ruined everything!"

She tried to twist her face away from the witch now putting all her strength into the hold she had around her throat, just enough so she could see her daughter. Lyra was crying, screaming now, her face was a horrible shade of red. Nora could only assume it mirrored her own face exactly. She could feel the veins bulging at her temples, could feel her eyes searching for away out of her head, and the looming darkness fighting with her to let go and slip into unconsciousness.

" Everything! Everything!"

The witch was rambling now. Her limbs were shaking. Her eyes were narrowed so sharply Nora could only see slices of the rage seeping from her ice blue orbs.

" He doesn't want you! He wants me! He doesn't want you or your filthy little inbreds! He wants me!"

She tried to nod, to agree, to tell her she was right, that Draco only loved her and she was welcome to her husband. Anything to save her life, anything to send air rushing back into her lungs, anything she wanted to hear, Nora would say, anything as long as it would save her children in the process.

Light flooded the room suddenly, breaking across the her face. Noises, some formed of laughter, others formed of shouting and yelling met her buzzing ears. Seconds later, her throat was released, and her hazy eyes watched Deidra's seizing body being dragged away from her still figure. Nora only managed to draw her daughter closer to her chest and quickly suck in the stale air around her.

" I don't have to listen to her!! I can do it now!! Right now!!"

Nora turned slowly on her side, cupping Lyra closer, steadying herself on one elbow. The voices she heard around her held nothing for her

" Give me my wand! I'll kill her! I'll fucking kill you!"

More chuckles clung the to atmosphere. Nora kept her eyes only on her daughter, one hand on the back of her head, the other around her quivering body. No one spoke, but it was clear that Deidra was being escorted by force from the room that now held more than just Nora and Lyra. Her screams seemed to distant themselves, ever so slowly dimming, than as if she had been placed in a padded room, cut off.

Seconds past. Minutes evolved around her. Nora could feel him looking at her, a pair of eyes burning into the fetal position she was now curled up in.

All she could do was breath.

Breath and protect her child from him.

" You really cannot blame her." The voice melted with the words. It hurt Nora to listen. " The poor girl." She heard what might have been a heavy sigh. " So lovesick...so impressionable." The voice laughed lightly. " So very delusional."

She heard his footsteps walk across the room now. When he stopped, he was standing over her. Nora hissed against her gritted teeth when he bent into a crouch.

" Your son isn't doing well Nora."

Her heart smashed off of her chest, and her head whipped around to stare at a person who was no longer her husband. She couldn't help the sound that left her mouth when she looked into empty eyes, into an empty face. She couldn't help the tears that slipped from the corners of her eyes when she found his hair clipped short. Her heart fractured because of that tiny physical change...but it left her with nothing now. There was nothing of Draco staring down at her now...the menacing glare only proved it.

" Where is he." She spat through her fresh tears.

" He's comfortable." Lucius grinned over the woman. " Awaiting his sister."

His eyes dropped to the baby still gripped in her mothers arms. " You I suppose will be a welcome surprise for him."

He than clapped his hands together, the grin blossoming into a smile that quickly dropped into a well planned smirk. " Together again...one happy little family."

" Bring me to him."

" But of course child." Lucius watched the woman struggle for a moment with the concept of walking. His mouth twisted into amusement.

Her head spun, her vision was blurred, her fingers itched to reach out and grab the man in front of her. Lyra whined in her arms. She hushed her quietly, and moved toward the now open door.

" I suppose all of this is quite confusing to you, am I right Nora?"

She swallowed the urge to scream. " It was. It isn't anymore."

" And how is that?"

" You're not Draco, I know that, my children know that." She kept her eyes dead ahead of her. Even the ppl screaming at her from the pictures to her left and right couldn't distract her need to see her son.

" Oh yes, I'm very little unlike my son. You see, Draco never had the stomach for my line of work. After he managed to botch a simple flick of his wands, mixed with a few words to put his pathetic headmaster out of his misery, his mother and I could only hope that he would marry well, pass the Malfoy name on, and keep our lineage free of such filth." Lucius ran a finger across Lyras exposed cheek.

Nora growled deep in her throat. Lucius chuckled. Arthur Weasley was maybe right in his day. How amusing this muggle was.

" But he couldn't even do that. You can only imagine my dissapointment when I found out about his indiscretions."

" I can only imagine."

He couldn't help the laughter. " Oh, you see? I believe I would have liked you as a daughter if it wasn't for the unfortunate birthright you carry."

The hallway came to an end, with either door to her left and right. She pressed Lyra tighter to her body. " How very unfortunate."

The room he opened for her was dark, the thick curtains were drawn across three sets of windows, all different in shape and size. Lines of light from the early morning sky slipped through the cracks of the material hanging in front of the glass, only helping her eyes adjust to the blackness slightly.  
She could pick out what could have been a fireplace. She bumped into what was defintley a chair. When she made it across the room, it was only than she caught sight of rows upon rows of books sitting in front of her, and reaching the height of the ceiling. There was three or four more chairs before the vast library, and between two of these chairs, what looked like a caged animal lay in a heap on the floor.

Her breath left her. " Scorpius."

When movement came from the animal that she now realized was her son, and that he was tied to the ground where he lay, her body gave in to the human side she had been trying to keep trapped between the folds of the only sanity she had left.

She was next to him in a flurry of movements, kissing him first, than examing each bruise and scratch, every single blemish becoming part of her memories, something she would thrust out of her and use when the time came.

" Mom?"

" It's okay huney...It's fine, everything is going to be fine." The words meant nothing. They were as empty as the man standing before them, grinning wildly at the little reunion. " Where are you hurt?"

" I'm fine." Scorpius managed, but the pain his insides stuggled with gave way in his voice. " Rose...mom...did Rose get out?"

" I don't know hun." Nora whipped her head around again, staring at Lucius with blood in her eyes. " He needs a doctor."

" I'm sure he does...but what would be the point."

Her expression sunk into rage once more. " Untie him than."

Lucius stood quite still for a small moment, than shrugged lightly. His wand lifted, and he flicked his wrist toward the binding ropes about Scorpius's hands and ankles.

Nora could only hug him lightly, the pressure she exerted upon him gaining only another pain filled moan from his lips. " Where are you hurt Scorpius?"

" My ribs were broken..." His eyes lifted to Lucius in uncertainty. " My nose too. I had a cut here." He motioned toward his cheek, now only sporting a clean white scar. " But he healed me."

" Healed you?"

" Oh yes, it was a little lapse in control, I suppose you could say." Lucius walked around the room, touching the random books. " My son reacted to the sight of the boy bleeding all over the floor. It was only momentary. It won't happen again, Draco is quite aware of that."

Nora blinked once. She looked to her son, who was staring oddly at the man now running a polished glove ober his shaven head. " What did he say?"

" He told Rose away out of here." Scorpius lowered his voice, but Lucius was still aware of the words he spoke. " He cast a spell to heal me. He even unlocked the door so we could run...but he told me to tell you to run with me and Lyra." His eyes fell toward his chest, shadowed with shame. " I know why now."

" It's not your fault..." Nora passed Lyra, who was now stretching her chubby arms out and toward her brother who took her carefully away from their mother. She rose to her feet, her glassy eyes clearing. Lucius rolled his own eyes when he saw the expression of hope burning in the muggles face.  
He laughed loudly as she approached where he stood. " And what do you think you are going to do dear one? Somehow kiss these lips and wake him from his eternal sleep? Or are you about to pledge your undying love for your husband, in hopes that his hands will suddenly become his again, and they will embrace you...instead of break your pretty head from your neck like my hands are programed to do."

She stopped mid step. " He still has power over this."

" Draco is gone." Lucius watched her move another step closer to him.

" He's fighting it." She hissed. Her own hand twisted behind her back, her fingers tripping across something cold.

" He's dead." Lucius snapped. He found himself even taking a small step away from her approach. Her features followed his, watching the tremble of confidence he seemed to exude like the sun, falter. " Nothing is bringing him back! Do you think we wouldn't have taken every factor into play when the curses were cast?! There is no loop hole, nothing that can break it, not even your disgusting love you have for my son!!"

" Mom please..." Scorpius pleaded, his body draining against the panic rising with her every step.

" Than why do you look so scared?"

" Scared?!" He almost shouted, but his self-respect and angst for the muggle now standing in front of him, kept his voice compact and snarling. " You worthless life and the lives of these abominations you call children are hanging dangerously close to death."

The cold metal was the first thing Lucius felt against his temple. A drawn out click helped his eyes widen in shock.

His eyes met hers. A smirk stained her lips.

" As is your own."

* * *

Outside the Goyle manor, figures stood in the shadows, their wands in hand. All eyes were on their leader for what they hoped was the last time. Harry and Ron stood side by side, whispering amongst themselves. Behind them, Molly stood with Rose, whose hand was being held tightly in order to keep the girl from running back into the place she had escaped from not hours before. Hermiones hand ran lightly over her daughters hair, but even her gaze was set on the place that they all now knew held what they had been searching for. Ginny stood with Neville, consoling him quietly. Luna had hexed him up and down their living room, when he ordered she stay put, seeing how their baby was only weeks from delivery. His face was the only funny thing to lighten the tension now growing like toxic pollution about the group.

Harry had kept the group small for a reason. Detection wasn't an option, and with so much magic in one place at one time, he was sure the witches and wizards beyond the door would feel the electricity plooming in the air even before they made it to the first floor.

He had only called on Seamus, Dean and Neville from the Order and the only people from the Aurors office who were to be involved with the following battle, was Hermione and Ron. Ginny was from neither, but he had given into his wife, once she threatened him with the same hex that Neville was now cursed with. His eyes slid toward his friend, and he cringed at the massive looking fly bites scattered across his skin. He swallowed a nervous laugh when Ginny slapped at Nevilles fingers, the bites calling them to scratch their itch.

The atmosphere grew quiet when Harry and Ron's discussion fell apart, and Ron walked his way back to Hermione and his daughter, who he lifted into his arms and simply held. Harry turned around and Ginny fell into step with him as he traced his walk back to his friends.

" We all know what to do." He said bluntly, excepting the hand his wife offered him. " Seamus and Dean I want you on Greyback. There's no indication he's under this curse. Even though he's non magic, he still had strength working for him. If you have to kill him do it. If not, I'm sure the dementors would enjoy a pet."

Seamus and Dean sniggered, but quieted when Harry barely cracked a smile. " He's the bodyguard. Take him out first."

" That leaves Goyle, Helena Crouch, Vinley Dolohov, Deidra Crabbe and Avedra." He looked to Ron, who nodded his support. " They out number us, but if we can get to their family earlooms and destroy them, before any spells are thrown, maybe their lives can be spared. We aren't sure whether this will break the curses on them or not... but we at least have to try before we take up other means."

" I want Ron to take Goyle, Hermione, Dolohov, Ginny, Helena." The words brought a strange feeling of war cry into his body once more. " They are protecting Avedra and Lucius. When the time comes, when we get past their barriers, we'll out number them."

Nods and quiet agreement sounded around him. Harry fell back, Ginnys hand still firm in his own. Molly stepped up, away from Arthur, taking Rose from her father. Small cries flooded from the girl, but were soon extinguished with words of comfort, kisses and hugs and a promise to bring her friend back safe and alive.

Seconds later, Molly and Arthur apparated with their grandaughter.

Moments later, under a trechorous gray sky, Dumbledore's Army took the Manor by storm.

* * *

" Your wand." Nora breathed into his ear. She jammed the barrel of the gun harder into the delicate skin of his temple. " Give me your fucking wand now!"

He passed it over to her outstretched hand. " This will never work my dear. I'm sure Avedra is on her way this very moment."

" Let her come." Nora kept the gun steady, trained at the head of her husband. " I have enough bullets for each and every one of you."

" You wouldn't kill me."

" Do you want to test that assumption out Dad?"

Lucius fell into a silence filled with rage.

" Scorpius." She never let her eyes fall away from the wizard before her. " Take Lyra, go back to this passage way and get out."

Lucius laughed. " So stupid you are. It's been destroyed. Thanks to your son, the last person to use it will be the young Weasley girl." He shrugged lightly. " Self sacrifice, I always thought it was a muggle emotion."

" Try the windows Scorpius."

" Locked my dear, and of course we enforced them with a number of spells, not even your boy would be able to break them." Lucius watched her brain tick fast, but her eyes stayed on his unmoving frame. She was leaving nothing to chance. " I could...that is break them, but I would need my wand."

When her free hand rose from her side, his wand in hand, he swallowed his laughter at her stupidity.

When the piece of wood snapped and splintered between her fingers, his expression froze in solidfied horror.

" Seeing how it has no use." Nora threw it to the side, and poured more pressure into the gun resting snuggly in her grip. " I guess were stuck with each other than."

" I'm beginning to think we have more in common than I thought Nora."

" Funny you're only realizing that now."

Scorpius groaned from the floor again. " Mom...somethings wrong."

Her hand shook. Lucius watched her tentivley, the want to go to her child outweighing the need to keep her weapon held at the head of her hostage.

" You can't win Nora." His voice melted against the reality of his words. It burned her ears to listen. " Either way, he is going to die. I'm beginning to think by the looks of things, that the internal damaged he recieved will be the hand that claims him..." Lucius shook his head in dissapointment, than turned his face upward to smile at her. " And when he's breathed his last breath, I'll be sure to deliver you and your darling daughter to him. Personally."

Silence dripped between the wizard and muggle. Nora met his glare, measuring his vacant eyes.

Her voice finally found her. " I can't let that happen."

The confusion won the battle on his face.

" You're not Draco anymore." Each word snapped with tears. She shook her head violently. " You're not Draco."

" Mom! Please don't!" Scorpius screamed.

" I won't let my children die by his hand. I won't have the last person they see be their father and their murderer! I won't!" The words repeated in her head as well as from her mouth. " You're not Draco anymore!"

Lucius's face spread with fear. The barrell of the gun trembled slightly against his forehead now, the meaning behind what the muggle was repeating finally rushing over him.

" You can't do this..." He hissed. " You wouldn't."

" I have to."

The gun clicked long and hard. The door to their prison burst open.

" They've found us Lucius!!"

And the bullet that was meant for the man she loved brought Deidra Crabbe to her knees, her blood one final time pooling on the floor.

_**Final chapter to come soon. It's too sad to think about. Reviews please?!**_


	23. Chapter Twenty Three

**Chapter Twenty Three**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

Deidra fell to her knees, a drawn out gasp sounding from her gaping mouth. Blood drained out and over her hands. Her eyes sought out the wound, than looked to the woman without a wand standing before her.

The moment that hung between the life draining from Deidra's expression and Nora's blank stare, was enough for the last shadow in the room to descend upon the muggle, his hand wrapping around her wrist, wretching the gun free from her grasp.

Nora struggled against her husbands body, throwing her weight into him as he tried to pull her arms behind her back. In one shove he had sent her to the floor, her grip on his robes pulling Lucius with her.

The cane fell from his hands, as they forced around the muggles throat.

" Scorpius!" Nora screamed under the wizard, who was steeling himself for each elbow or knee that the muggle was assaulting him with. " Scorpius! Run! Find Harry!!"

Through her fight, she saw her son nod with wide open eyes, and tucking Lyra close to his broken body make a run for the door.

" Go! Run!"

" Mom!"

Her hand connected with Lucius's face, her fingernails digging into the skin of his neck. She could only choke out her words to meet her son's panic. " Now! Go!"

And her children dissapeared from the room.

Deidra fell to the floor. " Draco."

Chaous exploded through the Manor. Lucius snarled over Nora as she bucked and clawed her way from each of his advances to kill her, his eyes now only seeing and hearing her. He was deaf to the pleas of the witch not feet away from him, her crimson colored hand reaching out for his body that was bent over Nora.

" No one can save you, you stupid bitch? Do you see how powerful I am? Even without my wand I can still spear the life from you." He bent his cheek to meet her own, now flooded red once more. " They won't get far either. Even Harry Potter can't save them from her. I really should keep you alive, to see Avedra bleed them both dry, but I'm sure she will barely miss you once your son and daughter are in her hands."

Her head rolled to it's left, tears trailing from her cheek. Her hands dropped to her sides.

" And you were going to kill me?" Lucius chuckled into the soft skin of her face, now flaming hot as she strangled the life from her slowly. " And by such muggle means? Foolish, foolish girl."

For a moment, Lucius thought it was done. The body under him stalled, and became still, her face becoming empty of the determination she had pulled from the depths of her soul not moments before, extinguished.

But her eyes remained open.

Lucius leaned a little closer to the body he assumed would be a corpse in seconds.

" Draco." One word matched one hand that wrapped around his wrist.

Her head rolled to stare into the empty eyes of her husband. " Draco."

His body snapped. His head rolled with uncontrolable pain. " No..." He hissed under his breath. Another snap quaked thorugh his extremities, and licked the blood now pumping through his veins. " It's over...it's over...no more! You can't win! It's over!!"

Her free hand, that had found his cane in the madness that presently surrounded the deatheater and the muggle, smashed the head of the serpant against the floor they both lay on.

The sound of the reptiles head shattering couldn't bring his eyes away from her. The whoosh of sickening green light that escaped the pieces of silver glass now glistening like diamonds in a room drenched with death, couldn't tear his gaze away from hers.

Lucius sunk back to the hell he had made for himself.

* * *

Draco collapsed against his wife.

Avedra stared through the battle before her.

Her deatheaters had scrambled to her once Harry Potter had made it through the doors of the manor, looking for guidance, for her command, her assurance that they would find victory over the boy who lived and his army.

" Kill them all." Was the only words that came to mind. " Do some justice for your family...as I will do for my own."

With her back turned to the blasts of light, to the retaliation and the markings of a battle she really had no interest in, she walked the halls, ignoring the shouts for her, rolling her eyes when Greyback screamed out her name when a pair of aurors managed to take him down. Helena and Dolohov had seemed to be doing perfectly well without her. At least they were giving the the two witches a solid fight. She smirked. It would be a fight that her two pons would lose, but they had served a purpose, and tonight, when she was finished with the filth still breathing in her space they would at least die knowing it was for the greater good.

Or at least for her greater good.

The hallway slid on before her. Her hands traced the wall beside her, the other hand held her wand lightly between her fingers. Her eyes danced along the now emptied frames decorating her walls. It seemed Lucius and Deidra would be the only witness to the final act. Her wand twirled about as she made her way to the room that held the finals players in her production.

Avedra grinned, picking up her pace slightly. How proud she was. How everything had knitted together just so. It was as it should be.

The sight of all of her efforts, now escaping from their stage, only brought a heavier grin across her lips.

" Are you leaving without saying goodbye?"

Scorpius barely had time to find the voice before his body was suspended in mid air, than thrown violently against the wall behind him. He stayed there, struggling to keep a tight hold on Lyra who was now sobbing in arms once more. Avedra slowly made her way to the boy and the baby, stopping before him, her head cocked slightly.

" You're making this very hard on me Scorpius."

When the boy didn't respond, she shrugged, tapping the wand against him once. Scorpius fell to the floor, bouncing off of his heels and immediately sheilding his sister from the witch standing over him.

" Good boy." She crooned, sneering at Lyra. " Come, let's find daddy and whatever is left of mummy."

The door was ajar when Avedra steered the two children back to their restraints. There was no noise coming from the room hidden behind it. Avedra pursed her lips, before planting Scorpius before him and shoving him hard through the opening.

Her expression had yet to change. Even as she took in Deidras lifeless body, it did little to unhinge her steeled glare. Of course there was more to shake her attention at that moment. The pair lying against one another, just as still and quiet, was of much more interest to her.

" I underestimated your muggle mother I suppose." Avedra sighed, taking a step toward Nora and Draco. " But I suppose she got as good as she gave."

Scorpius stared blankly at his parents. Lyra began to cry. Avedra only grinned with satisfaction.

She took in the gun, lying aimlessly near the dead. Along with Deidra, it as well was pooling in her blood. She somehow managed to avert her rage at the sight of the remnants of her uncles cane, now broken and shattered about her. The spell had been strong, but Avedra had known from the beginning it only took this to break Draco free from it.

" Such the muggle way." She sighed, shifting her way between the three bodies. " It would be quite interesting to see them all flounder and drown in their own stupidity if it wasn't for such things." Her foot pressed lightly against the metal of the gun, before she turned to face the two children, paled and sick looking from the sight of what was left of their parents. " I like to believe that when it comes to such matters, magic can come quite in handy...it makes for more entertainment."

Avedra almost laughed when the boy's eyes blanched to the weapon at her feet. She drifted back towards the children, running her fingers up and down her wand as her mind tripped over itself, the different spells to expel their lives from them weighing heavily on her.

The sounds of her losing battle taking place below them did nothing to distract her. Even when loud footsteps somehow began to ascend up the staircase of the manor, it barely made her blink.

The tip of her wand found it's place, now tucked deeply into the skin of Scorpius's throat. Her eyes studied his face. It disgruntled her to see that their was no fear staring back at her. She pressed the wood a little harder against his neck.

" Would you rather die first, or would you rather me drain the life from the little one while you watch?"

Scorpius was the only one to see his father move. He watched the cloaked figure slowly take in his surroundings, brushing his hands across Nora's face, tripping his fingers across her throat.

" Why not let Lyra live."

" And why would I do that?"

Draco cleared his vision with one hard blink. The voice of his son, mixed with his daughters racking sobs helped clear the fog still billowing in his sight.

" Why wouldn't you?" Scorpius was careful to keep his eyes locked with Avedras. He could only watch his father from the corner of his gaze as he soundlessly got to his feet. " I would guess that Lyra is going to be one hell of a witch when she comes of age. My father was a great wizard. His father, and his father before him was the same...I thought that her skills would at least come in handy to you...you know, when you're unable to continue your work."

" And you would serve your darling sister up to me like this? On a platter so to speak."

Scorpius felt the wand lose some vigilance on his neck. " To save her life I would."

Avedra let her gaze dip toward the howling child. " So noble...I suppose she could serve some purpose."

Draco watched with an added sickness when his cousins fingers reached out and cupped his daughters chin in her hand. He scanned the darkness for his wand, added blinks of it spintering and going to dust before him breaking through the haziness of his fathers remaining memory. He caught sight of Avedras wand, slowly lowering away from his sons throat.

" She would never have to know about the family she once came from. I could mold her the way my mother molded me...but better...smarter." Her mind spun with visions now. A small blond child losing her innocense, growing into a skilled young witch under her guidance. Maybe even once day building an army that even the great Voldemort would tremble at the thought of. " She could be great."

Scorpius held on to Lyra tighter now. The witch before him seemed to be lost in her own thoughts...her own fantasies. A tall blond woman, with silver eyes, twirling in black garments, the wand in her pale white hand spinning spells and curses. Spells and curses that she herself had taught the dark witch.

Her voice was wistful and calm when she spoke. " I could be her mother."

The voice that met her own was anything but." She has a mother."

The crack that sounded through the large room echoed through the halls of the manor. Avedra blanched when the grimacing shadow came over her, winding his hands about her arms and bending her body back toward his own.

Scorpius dove for the closed door, and began to tug with his free hand on the knob, willing the jammed wood to open. He could hear Harry and the others on the other side now, casting whatever spell they could, each cracking noise failing to bust the door down as they tried over and over again to break through the tight barrier.

Draco struggled with Avedra, her curling scream as he tried to pry her wand from her hand, wrapping its way around the room. He heard the spells resolving on her tongue, and with zero to no force jets of red light began to bounce off the floor and the walls from the wand. He grunted when her elbow connected with his already throbbing stomach, and gasped as the air left him for the second time that night. Avedra shreiked when his hand wound about her hair, tugging her back violently to wear he now knelt on the floor, his head spinning as he tried to breath oxygen back into his lungs.

Scorpius watched as his father brought another arm about Avedra's neck, and slammed her body against his once more, another stab at gaining control of the wand that was still protrudung spells like an open wound would lose blood.

" How could you do this to your own family?" She hissed, her nails making tracks down his exposed forearms. Her eyes found his...not his fathers, for the first time in weeks, staring back at her, pure hate running like wildfire through them.

Draco bent her hand back, gaining another shreik from the depths of her throat. " Open the door."

" Your own blood! Your own flesh! Not even the boy is that to you!"

" Open the door!!" Draco barked. He could feel her pulse throbbing under his fingers. " Now! Open it now!"

Avedra was laughing now, long and hard. Her teeth were barred between her lips, a low animal like snarl simmering on her tongue. " What are you going to do Draco? Kill me?! What's the ultimatum if I don't open the door for your pityful band of blood traitors?!"

The vow.

His hands loosened only slightly.

" Oh!" She laughed again, this time twisting it in her throat to suit more of a scream. " You forgot dear cousin?! Well, I suppose that should be expected...seeing how you weren't yourself for so long..."

"Shut up!" He shook her violently between clenched fingers of her skin. His eyes flew to his children, both now sobbing against the barrier to their safety. Scorpius looked pale...he looked like he was weak...or getting weaker. Lyra seemed to slump in his arms as each second passed.

More shocking blasts were being thrown at the door, but to no avail.

" Pathetic." Avedra grinned, her teeth slipping past her crimson lips, fixing themselves into a firm snarl. " You really thought you could win? You really believed you could save them all? Self sacrifice and all dear cousin..."

Draco watched Scorpius slump down onto the floor, spots of blue teasing the skin on his face. His eyes met his fathers. Lyra screamed as her brother loosened his hold on her.

" Scorpius!"

" I can't kill you! But I can kill them." She cackled again, this time her body being flung to the ground as Draco ran for his children. He caught Lyra up in his arms and folded Scorpius against him in uneven, harsh movements that made his son look like a lifeless rag doll. Avedra squeeled with her own personal entertainment once more, climbing slowly to her feet now, her eyes level with what was remaining of the Malfoy legacy. Ignoring the growing vigilance from the hallway, she stooped toward the father and his children. " Will you want to breath air into your lungs when you have nothing else to live for cousin? When I kill the pieces that are left of you, will you turn your wand on yourself and join your atrocities where they lay?!"

She grinned when Draco met her gaze.

She faltered when he grinned back.

The blast that resounded through the room only seemed to surprise Avedra herself.

As her eyes grew wide and her grin shook on her lips, her wand slipped from her hand.

When Avedras blood spilled from her chest, and her fingers found their way to her wound, the woman, the muggle stepped before her, the gun wound tightly in her solid grip.

The witch died where she fell.

_**Epilogue is next. I couldn't really end it like this. Anyway, it will come sooner that later! Breeva**_


	24. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of J.K Rowlings or her Harry Potter, but I do like to play in her world whenever possible!**

_**Last chapter! I'm so sad! How do I let go!?**_

_** The Daily Prophet**_

_** The Verdict Is In**_

_**This morning, Minister Lornaganne, in a shocking turn of events, handed down much lighter sentences to the band of deatheaters that have sat on their ultimate sentencing for the past eleven months. Due to the circumstances surroundung their misdeeds, and their crimes against the muggle world as well as our own world, it was announced at a quarter past one this afternoon, that; Helena Crouch, Vinley Dolohov and Gregory Goyle Junior, will not be sentenced to Azkaban prison, but issued to serve out a seven year probation period instead.**_

_**After the evidence in their combined trials was presented, and witnesses, including Harry Potter, Ronald Weasely and Hermione Granger Weasely took the stand in what was seen as a defense for the criminals in question, it came to light that the three defendants, had been under an unforeseen curse, placed on them through a spell called transfer. This curse left them unknowing of their actions, and helpless to the orders placed on them. Similiar to the Impirius curse in our world, this curse is mainly used by certain muggles who wish to obtain magic through demonic means, and in the hands of either witch or wizard is now seen to be more powerful than the Impirius itself.**_

_**In another surprising twist, Draco Malfoy also took the stand during the trials of the people who had once served as his comrads. Mr. Malfoy, who had also surcumbed to the curse that Avedra Lestrange, daughter to Bellatrix Lestrange had placed on him, told the court that under the circumstances, the spell was impossible to fight against, and the demands and orders brought against the persons on trial as well as himself were of no choice to them. He explained that he himself had threatened the lives of his own wife and children, and unbeknownst to him, had taken on his fathers, the late Lucius Malfoy, spirit of sorts to conduct the murders of his own family.**_

_**Mr. Malfoys wife, Mrs. Nora Malfoy who was also present upon her husbands questioning, was absent to speak about the details surrounding the deaths of Avedra Lestrange and Diedra Crabbe, but a source close to the courts and the judical system informed the Prophet that it was she who brought about their deaths in defense of her childrens lives. No charges will be laid.**_

_**It is in these times of trial and strife within our worlds however, it is a great comfort that we can look to the future, now that another form of extended evil has been put to rest. It is the idea that our worlds, our present and furture worlds should take heed from the past and the mistakes within it. We should look to our children with hope. We should be inspired when magic meets muggle and something good and pure comes from the union. **_

_**Our prejudices should be left in the darkness and the despair of our past, where it belongs, once and for all.**_

* * *

_**Seven Years Later**_

" Lyra Blair Malfoy!"

A little girl with a bob of short white blond hair bounced away from the call of her full name, and dodged the scolding she was sure to get sooner or later skillfully. Her parents were following her, but she was quicker. Well, maybe not as quick as her father, but she was able to hide within the crowd of witches and wizards, and escape the calls that seemed to grow more distant as she searched for a head of red hair within the pairs of legs surrounding her.

She knew she was in trouble. Her mother only sounded like that when she was really angry, and apparently flying a broomstick without her dad around plus _accidently_ sending a quidditch ball through the window of her brothers school was the cause of her flaring temper. Lyra smirked. She wondered how easy it would be to blame on Hugo. Her smirk grew into a grin. She also wondered how proud her father was right now.

If it hadn't been for Hugo Weasley actually challenging her to play a quick game of quidditch with the first year gruffindors, she wouldn't have ever gotten on the stupid broom without her Dad watching. But _he _had challenged her, and she wouldn't ever be able to live it down if she had said no. Her parents were busy with her brother and his graduation, so she had been sure to get away with one small match without much notice.

She scored though. The winning point too...it was just too bad her arm was that good that the ball somehow ended up crashing through the window of the headmistress's window. She giggled. The boys looked dumbfounded. Lyra decided she liked that expression.

" You're in trouble."

Arms tangled about her, ones that she knew, and as her feet left the ground, she did little to fight against them. Her brother grinned down at her. " Causing trouble already and you're not even in your first year yet? Pretty good kid. You're going to give mom and dad simuntaneous strokes before you even see the halls of Hogwarts."

" Come on Scorp! It was an accident! And besides I got the winning point! Did you see the look on those first years faces!?"

" No I didn't, I was too busy laughing at the look on mom's face."

Lyra frowned, emulating her mother to perfection. " Is she really mad?"

Scorpius shrugged, tugging at the collar of his dress shirt that was hidden under his graduation robes. " Presently. Dad couldn't stop smiling though. He kept telling random people that you were his daughter."

His sister laughed at this, than settled back into a small smile. " I spose I'll be grounded."

" You suppose?"

Scorpius turned with Lyra in his arms, choked back a laugh, than set his sister on the ground in front of their parents.

Draco stared down at his daughter, trying to keep the glow of pride he was surely beaming with clean from a forced expression of dissapointment. Nora however was shaking her head at the little girl, and taking a very deep, very needed breath.

" It was an accident mom!"

" Was it an accident that you climbed on that broom without your father around?"

Lyra sighed, than shook her head. She bit her bottom lip, and Draco grimaced at the sight of small tears welling up in his little girls eyes. " But Hugo dared me! And I couldn't say no! He would pester me all the time and call me a chicken!"

" I knew it had something to do with a Weasley." Draco snickered before dropping down onto one knee to wipe at the tears now smearing Lyras pink cheeks. He glanced at Scorpius and smirked as he rose with his daughter in his arms. " It always does."

Scorpius immediatley turned a deep shade of crimson, shifting his gaze to anywhere but his amused parents. " Well, I'm going to go and find Al before Mrs. Potter decides to harass him with more pictures and blinds the poor guy."

" Meet us by the tent in ten minutes Scorp." Draco shouted after his son, receiving a small wave of agreement, before another head of white blond hair dissapeared into the thickness of the crowds around them.

" He's not gone to find Albus Potter." Lyra giggled. Nora smiled lightly.

Draco chuckled along with her. " No I don't think so. Let's hope Mr. Weasley isn't watching."

They walked about the grounds for a few more minutes. " Is it true that when you were younger you were turned into a ferret dad?"

Draco smirked, and Nora continued to laugh. " I suppose so. Did Hugo tell you that?"

" No, Mr. Potter did! He said it was hilarious and very fitting."

" I'm sure your father deserved it." Nora quipped, before grabbing her husbands hand in her own. She met his unamused eyes, and smiled sweetly. " For the most part he usually does."

" Funny." Draco grumbled.

" Malfoy!"

All three heads turned to find the source of Draco's displeasure strolling toward them. Lyra cringed at the sight of her friend trapped between his father and mother, who looked just as angry as her own mother did not moments before.

" Weasley." Draco drawled.

" Nice goin Lyra, now we're both in for it!" Hugo struggled against Hermione, who only had to issue one small glare in order for him to stop his useless effort.

Lyra frowned, a hand going to her hip, a finger pointed directly at the nose of her friend. " It's your fault Hugo Weasley! You dared me and you knew I wouldn't say no!"

" I didn't throw the ball through the headmistress's window Lyra Malfoy!" The little boy began to turn the shade of his hair quickly.

Lyra smirked. " No, because if you had, it wouldn't even have made it through the goal post!"

Laughter erupted around the two little figures who were now head to head, nose to nose and toe to toe. Hugo huffed. Lyra glowered at him as their mothers seperated their children.

"Merlin Malfoy, shes defintley your daughter." Ron grinned. Draco tried to restrain his own smile, but failed miserably.

" Did you see the arm on her?"

Ron nodded, obvioulsy impressed. " Oliver Woods son will snap her up pretty quick when she starts in a few years."

Visions of his daughter dressed in the Slytherin Quidditch uniform, soaring through the air with the Quidditch cup in her arms danced in his head. Nora rolled her eyes at the two men. Hermione copied her friend.

The two families began to make their way toward the billowing tent at the far end of the grounds of Hogwarts. Hugo and Lyra lagged behind, still arguing, but more or less celebrating their win over the first years.

Hermione and Nora chatted together while their husbands stalked behind them, addressing the weather, the school and the teachers who were retiring that year. Ahead of them beside the opening to the tent where the graduation would be taking place, Harry and Ginny stood, seemingly waiting for their friends to join them. Ginny waved as did Harry, while a sullen Lily sulked behind her parents.

" Malfoy." Harry greeted Draco with a handshake, and hugged Nora and Lyra. Ginny embraced Draco, than Nora as well as Lyra, pecking the little girl on the nose and than reaching for Hugo to do the same.

" Where's Scorpius?" Ginny glanced about the crowds.

" Where do you think." Ron sneered, receiving a smack from Hermione. " What? We all know he's off somewhere with my little girl trying to corrupt her in some new way, shape or form."

Draco could only agree as he embraced his wife close to his side. " I taught him well."

Ron sneered. Everyone broke into laughter once more.

" Have you heard whose entering first year in september?" Harry was talking to the group, but more or less his eyes were trained on Draco, who instantly picked up on the edge to the mans voice.

" Who?"

" Goyle's oldest."

Nora blanched white slowly. Her eyes traveled to Lyra before meeting Draco's cautious gaze. Their common thoughts braced against one another.

" His probation was up a week ago." Harry continued, watching Draco carefully as his glower stayed solid on his family. " Along with Helena and Vindley. Vindley's oldest is also in first year come september."

Nora was counting down the years until Lyra turned eleven as she was sure Draco was. Four years. Her stomach twisted. An anxiety she hadn't felt for years resurfaced like a monster at the thought of her daughter being in the same school as the offspring of the people who had once tried to take her little life away.

" Sounds familiar." Draco grunted, exploding a horrid look on anyone who was within distance of it. " All they need is a third little bast-..."

" Draco." Nora warned.

Her face changed slowly when Lyra laughed high and heavy at Hugo, now pushing his face together in an effort to make his friend laugh. It was an unlikly thing to watch, and Nora now knew how true that was. A Malfoy playing with a Weasley while their fathers looked on with hidden grins. A younger Malfoy, with a Potter, his best friend to say the very least, at his side, aiding his best friends search through the crowds of wizards, witches and muggles at his graduation for one Weasley inparticular. Her own friendship with the witches now at her side, a warm comforting hand from either Hermione or Ginny easing the tension in her body.

And than there was Draco, his face was opened to her, his eyes waiting to meet her own. " It's over isn't it?"

Draco matched her gaze, and swallowed hard against the emotion circling his chest as she walked into his arms. " I never thought it was possible." Draco spoke toward the top of his wifes head, inhaling her scent, trapping it in his lungs. " Especially coming from my mouth..." He heard Harry chuckle, heard Ginny hush him and shaking his head and rolling his eyes at his enemy turned friend, continued to speak to the woman he owed his very life to. " It will never touch them Nora. Not again."

The impossible had happened to him. What would never be, was, and it fit. It fit into his arms at night when he was letting sleep drag him under. It fit in his hands when the training wheels had come off and soon a bike was replaced by a broom. It fit over a glass of firewhiskey, when words were spoken about a certain red headed Weasley with quiet intentions that were going to one day be seen to.

Draco chuckled. " And besides, she's your daughter. Who in their right mind would tangle with that?"

" Oh for the love of Merlin!"

Ron's exasperated voice broke through the quiet moment between Draco and Nora, pulling their thoughts and eyes to the mans present focus.

" What's he done now?!"

Draco watched his son and Rose Weasely standing very similiar to how Lyra and Hugo had been stanced not moments before their mothers had extracted them from one another. The eldest Weasley was of course, as red as her brother had been, while his own son was of course smirking, awaiting it to be smacked off of him if he continued to move his mouth the way he was.

They argued back and forth, even through the call for all the graduates to take their places inside of the tent for the ceremony. Fingers were wagged, smug expressions were thrown, and Draco was sure he could see Rose Weasley cursing at his son. He couldn't help chuckle.

" You're impossible Scorpius Malfoy!!"

" Rose! Wait!"

A witch dressed in similiar graduation robes as Scorpius stormed away from him, pushing her way through the crowds until she met her parents head on, tears billowing in a pair harsh dark green eyes and shimmied past them into the tent.

A head of white blond hair bounded by his parents as well, ignoring Ron's look of death, and ignoring everyone else's bubbles of laughter.

" What did I tell her?" Ron asked blindly as they all followed the drama that had just rushed by them, in a silent hope that it wouldn't unfold while they were excepting their diplomas. " What did I tell her?! Harry, what did I tell her? Hermione, you heard me! What did I tell her?!"

And in a moment that suddenly felt so full and complete, Draco Malfoy dragged an arm roughly around Ronald Weasely's shaking shoulders while Harry Potter looked on in his own fits of amusement. " So Weasle-bee, what do you think about a Malfoy as a son in law?"

Curses followed by laughter exploded inside the tent.

_**And done! So I hope you all enjoyed! It took some time to getting around to finishing, but I'm pleased with the outcome! It was so much fun to write and play with the characters and plots! I really want to thank everyone who reveiwed! You guys really helped me through this process and I am forever grateful to your lovely comments!**_

_**As for a sequel...I'm in the process, but I'm going to get some chapters under my belt before I post anything more! But it should be soon! I've decided to call the sequel THE ENDS OF THE THREAD. Seemed fitting after THE MISSING PIECES. Anyway, once more love to all of you! And if you want to leave me a reveiw on the entire story please do!**_

_**Breeva Malfoy**_


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